Microsoft's New Programming Language, "M"

Anthony_Cargile writes "Microsoft announced Friday their new 'M' language, designed especially for building textual domain-specific languages and software models with XAML. Microsoft will also announce Quadrant, for building and viewing models visually, and a repository for storing and combining models using a SQL Server database. While some say the language is simply their 'D' language renamed to a further letter down the alphabet, the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows."

Comments

lame

[Anonymous Coward]

great. another language to learn that is completely useless and no one will use.. And I'm not trolling, this glut of languages is fucking ridiculous. Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

Re:lame

[LEMONedIScream]

If you're not trolling, why post AC? Hell, why I am I responding?

Re:lame

[__aamnbm3774]

which parts need cleaned up?
they are all pretty consistent across the board.

and who cares how many languages there are. each one fits a different purpose, whether they are small niches or big sweeping frameworks like Java, does it really bother you that someone, somewhere just went 'yes, this is perfect for me'?

Re:lame

[The Redster!]

New Entry-level opportunity for a young, seasoned programmer in a fast-paced environment. Must have:

2 Years MS-SQL experience
3 Years in "M", 5 preferred
Pay negotiable.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can sling coffee @ Charbucks and make the same pay

Re:lame

[encoderer]

You are trolling. If you weren't you'd have no need to try to disclaim it.

There's no such thing as too many languages.

From a programmers perspective the more the market fragments the more opportunity for specialized knowledge that increases your market value.

And it seems you don't really understand the idea of M. This is not a general purpose language.

So your post is like saying "iPod? Great. Another computer to buy that is useless and no one will use. This glut of computers is fucking ridiculous. Why not make x86 boot quickly instead?"

The iPod is a specialized computer for a specialized task. Just like M.

Re:lame

[Spiked_Three]

There was a lot of new tech in the last couple of .net releases - and unfortunately they are all not in sync at all.

It's no big deal, anytime that much new comes out in so many areas it takes a while to get them synced, but it's a little chaotic now.

Specifically; new GUI paradigm (XAML/WPF/Silverlight) and new Data Access (LINQ) - the standard collections don't have INotifyPropertyChange support across the board, SortedCollections are hit and miss, just in general I have found that interfaces needed for one new component is not well implemented for other new components. Like I said, just a bit of growing pains, but it needs attention.

But I'll agree it has nothing to do with a new language being introduced. I doubt if that will have any affect one way or the other.

Re:lame

[smittyoneeach]

New feature of the M language. Mention it, and out pops muzik.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't another programming language per se, its a modelling tool. The next level of abstraction, if you will of seperating logic from entities. Models will it appears be described in a dialect of XAML (the M specification, similar to XOML for WF I guess). The languages was developed internally under the code name "D" for Declarative but once it was found that the name was taken it got renamed to "M" for Model(ling).

Re:lame

[darkpixel2k]

does it really bother you that someone, somewhere just went 'yes, this is perfect for me'?

Yeah--because they are probably wrong.
My company gets all the Microsoft development tools for free.

With those tools, we build things like Contact management systems, inventory applications, and websites.

We then turn around and sell them to customers. Customers love the price, but then later realize that they must buy a server to run in on, a copy of Windows, a server to run SQL on, a copy of Microsoft SQL Server, licenses, licenses to allow 'anonymous' internet connections, copies of Microsoft Office 2007 to be able to read the reports it spits out in Word 2007 format, etc...

...and the price balloons by thousands of dollars.

When I develop applications, I don't go looking for the tools that make my life the easiest--I go looking for the tools that will make the end-user's life easier. I develop in languages that work across multiple platforms (except for the abomination that is Java).

Microsoft tools are awesome if you're a developer. They make pumping out applications and websites easy...unless you want to use non-microsoft technologies...or want to save money...or have one of those stubborn Mac users that won't switch to windows ;)

In other words, if you want to be locked into using and paying extortionate fees for Microsoft technologies until the end of time, go ahead. Use Visual Studio. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Re:lame

[batkiwi]

You hit on some, but don't forget that generics have been in since dotnet 2.0 and we STILL do not have generics for reflection, data-tables, or many other standard pieces of the API which still require the use of explicit casting.

Re:lame

[darkpixel2k]

The iPod is a specialized computer for a specialized task. Just like M.

Yeah.
M helps you reach your goal of being completely locking in your company to Microsoft products.
The iPod just plays music.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is full of code divas, who are just too good for the existing languages, and "need" to create yet another one for the stupid masses to use. In other words, some people are just so full of $hit, just wanting prove their own "excellence" above the language-designers who came before. In all actuality, it's just a pain in the a$$.

Re:lame

[HangingChad]

Yeah--because they are probably wrong.

They are wrong. The last thing we need is another programming language tied to a specific platform.

We then turn around and sell them to customers. Customers love the price, but then later realize that they must buy a server to run in on, a copy of Windows, a server to run SQL on, a copy of Microsoft SQL Server, licenses, licenses to allow 'anonymous' internet connections, copies of Microsoft Office 2007 to be able to read the reports it spits out in Word 2007 format, etc...

Exactly why we opted out of the whole Microsoft environment, at least on the server and desktop side of the house. We have a couple Windows clients floating around with the sales staff but those are laptops that came with it.

Instead of constantly serving the MS machine, we can focus on working. If we need capacity, we just stand it up. New servers go in for the cost of the hardware. I don't consider myself stubborn, just practical. I'd rather focus on work than spend time keeping up the MS all-singing, all-dancing, constantly changing development environment. All the time you spend keeping up on security patches, learning new languages, hunting through the knowledge base, re-writing stuff the new framework broke...it's just nuts. You'd be amazed how productive you can be when you strip all the MS process out of your environment.

Re:lame

[bozojoe]

Not sure what your looking for here.... reflection of generics? got that already.

Generics in all parts of the framework (configuration provider pattern) perhaps?

Re:lame

[Blakey Rat]

If you don't like it, just don't use it.

If you don't like Microsoft, you could be cheering that they wasted all their money developing this "completely useless" language that "no one will use."

But seriously, I don't know why the concept of "if you don't like it, just don't use it" is so goddamned hard for people. Microsoft's not forcing it on you, you know.

Re:lame

[uberjack]

They sure seem to be interested in saturating the market, though. VB.net, ASP.net, J#, C#, F#, now M (which I'm guessing is in a higher octave or something?) Microsoft's been the programming market's Johnny-Come-Lately since .net 1.0 first came out. Before .net there was Java. Before F# there was Python. Before M? I don't know, but I'm starting to lose track (and my tendency to care).

Re:lame

[slashtivus]

Microsoft's been the programming market's Johnny-Come-Lately since

One of the major reasons that MS got into its current position is that they offered many nice programming tools that Corporations liked. Hate on MS all you want but they really did have the right idea very early on to make many tools available for custom development, and companies loved it. Yes that also includes VB, shock of all shocks.

There goes my karma :(

Re:lame

[Mongoose Disciple]

With those tools, we build things like Contact management systems, inventory applications, and websites.

We then turn around and sell them to customers. Customers love the price, but then later realize that they must buy a server to run in on, a copy of Windows, a server to run SQL on, a copy of Microsoft SQL Server, licenses, licenses to allow 'anonymous' internet connections, copies of Microsoft Office 2007 to be able to read the reports it spits out in Word 2007 format, etc... ...and the price balloons by thousands of dollars.

This seems dubious to me.

For example, in the case of SQL Server, an awful lot of end users can be just fine with the free (as in beer) Express version. You don't need Word 2007 to open Word 2007 documents, either.

Beyond that, I'd argue that either:

A) Your company is sticking Microsoft bits (Word, etc.) where they don't really need to go, thus, the fault is yours, or

B) The end user is gaining legitimate value from that integration that probably outweighs what they're paying. For example, if the end users actually need to manipulate or tinker with the data your reports spit out for them, probably being able to do it in a program that they're very used to (Excel) is worth the price.

Re:lame

[darkpixel2k]

Yeah, your doing real justice with your customer's. This is another M$ proprietary thing. And then you have the gall to mention Unix.

What you just said made absolutely no sense...
On top of that, nowhere did I say 'Unix', 'Linux' or anything remotely like it.

Are you on drugs, or just a moron?

Re:lame

[Apathist]

The iPod just plays music

Yeah, right. And how do you get that music onto the iPod? Oh yeah, you need to install iTunes (which is terrible software, btw)... and what is iTunes except a foot in the door for the whole Apple(tm) lifestyle?

Yeah, I can see how that is totally different to getting locked into Microsoft products.

Re:lame

[syousef]

When I develop applications, I don't go looking for the tools that make my life the easiest--I go looking for the tools that will make the end-user's life easier. I develop in languages that work across multiple platforms (except for the abomination that is Java).

You should be looking for tools that make sense and are therefore easy for the developer AND achieve what the end user wants. Putting the end user first is an admirable but misplaced sentiment. If you're constantly struggling against the tools to achieve the desired result you'll be spending less time addressing the end user's concerns.

Then you call Java an abomination. I have news for you. ALL tools are abominations - none are perfect. None make sense all the time. You don't need to love the tool, you just need to use it effectively. Since Java is now the defacto standard of choice for most business apps, calling it an abomination and refusing to work with it is childish.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

"M" already exists.
http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab/

Re:lame

[CodeBuster]

we STILL do not have generics for reflection

I use generics and reflection together all of the time, what do you mean that we don't have generics for reflection? The Activator class includes generics support for CreateInstance and there is a MakeGenericType method for making generic types among other things. Could it be better? I don't know maybe possibly, it depends upon what you want and how you define better in context. As for data-tables who actually uses raw data-tables straight up in a serious production application? If you need data persistence then get yourself an ORM like NHibernate or else use LINQ to SQL if you need something quick and dirty.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can see how that is totally different to getting locked into Microsoft products.

Silly, of course it is different, getting locked into Apple(tm) lifestyle will make you cooooool.

Re:lame

[poolmeister]

Let's not forget the additional confusion caused by this as MUMPS is a language that has been around since the late 1960s and is also referred to as M

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

It's not another general-purpose programming language. It's a very narrow-domain language specifically designed to fit a certain niche. The fact that among its major influences the language designers list ML, Haskell, and TLA+ might ring a bell.

See this and this for more info.

To understand what specifically they are about, it helps to watch Anders' talk at JAOO. It's titled "Where are programming languages going", but to make more sense out of of it, it's best to mentally rewrite it as "What is the Microsoft language strategy for today" - which makes sense, given that Anders is the guy who "oversees the general programming language strategy for the company" at MS these days. It has a large section devoted to metaprogramming in general and DSLs in particular, among other interesting bits such as FP. If you have a reasonable knowledge of modern language design concepts, you won't hear anything new in that talk, and will probably find the explanations pretty dumbed-down; nonetheless, the interesting stuff is not what's being said so much as it is who is saying it, and in what context (particularly looking for phrases like ".. and this is what we'd like to do in future versions of our platform" - and metaprogramming/DSLs has that).

Perhaps the key statement is this:

"... and certainly, in a static world, we need more modern metaprogramming APIs ... C# 3.0 expression trees is a start, but it is but a start ... We need to get out of the black-boxness of our compilers and turn them into services, the APIs that you can use."

Hm... CommonLisp.NET?

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

the standard collections don't have INotifyPropertyChange support across the board

That's by design. In many cases, you do not want the overhead. That's why ObservableCollection<T> was introduced.

Though I agree that, in general, the .NET APIs are a bit of a mess especially after 3.5 SP1 release. The good news is that the MS guys know about it, and it seems that some cleanup is on the TODO list - hopefully scheduled for 4.0, as it will be a "breaking" release (like 2.0 was with respect to 1.x), so they can change more things.

Re:lame

[serveto]

Of course! Programming languages exist to keep programmers in work and increase business costs.

Re:lame

[ozphx]

Funny. When I develop applications its usually my fee as senior architect, a handful of mid to juniors, a couple of blokes doing QA/testing/tech writing, and someone that looks good in a suit to keep the clients away from my team.

All up you are looking at the best part of a million dollars to develop anything "serious". The cost of licensing MS products is bugger all in comparison.

As for smaller shops banging together basic sharepoint crap, I'm sure you are aware that a license for Small Business Server is a couple of hundred bucks.

And don't start whinging about CAL's either. They're like $50 a seat, and that seat is at a desk, upon which is a $1500 computer.

Get some fucking business sense before you start whinging about the costs and lock-in. If the tool is too expensive, then its not for you and you don't need it. Get the baby edition for small players.

Re:lame

[ozphx]

Fuck. That was meant to be a reply to #25343419 :(

Re:lame

[Jugalator]

Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

And that will help Microsoft reach their goal with this new language - how? And what parts?

Re:lame

[Jugalator]

But I'll agree it has nothing to do with a new language being introduced.

And they'll most likely even have different teams allocated for the languages. Microsoft is big after all. Just like which route they take with C# doesn't have to affect what they do with their native C++ or VB.NET support.

Re:lame

[Jugalator]

We then turn around and sell them to customers. Customers love the price, but then later realize that they must buy a server to run in on, a copy of Windows, a server to run SQL on, a copy of Microsoft SQL Server, licenses, licenses to allow 'anonymous' internet connections, copies of Microsoft Office 2007 to be able to read the reports it spits out in Word 2007 format, etc...

I develop for e.g. mobile devices and use SQLite with phxsoftware's excellent .NET backend, instead of SQL Server Compact Edition. And we don't output formats that require the latest MS Office release. Are we really that special, that does this as a service to our customers and lower the barrier of entry? For reports, you don't even have to us MS Office on Windows. I don't even think it's the best choice. There are a number third party controls for the job out there, that don't require the license cost of the entire Office 2007.

Re:lame

[Jugalator]

OK, silly me picking SQLite as an example when SQL CE is free as well (there were another reason we picked that too -- we needed a cleaner C++ interface). But we still never require SQL Server on the desktop for that reason. We communicate with ODBC connections wherever needed, as for the desktop.

Re:lame

[cyber-vandal]

You need to change supplier if you're paying that sort of money for a PC unless you're doing something very serious on it (i.e. unlike the huge majority of PC users).

Re:lame

[cyber-vandal]

VBA at least is perfect for what it is designed for which is to allow the automation of common tasks. It's a godsend for people like me who know how to program but have a non-programming job (and therefore can't justify having dev tools installed).

Re:lame

[mangu]

From a programmers perspective the more the market fragments the more opportunity for specialized knowledge that increases your market value.

You aren't a professional programmer, are you? What you are saying is that it's better to have 10% of a $1 million sector than 1% of a $10 million sector.

But it's worse than that. In *any* job as a programmer, no matter where you work, something will always come up that needs different languages. By restricting your knowledge to a single language, you are limiting your opportunities. The bottom line is, the more languages exist, the worse for programmers.

As for me, I try to push Python as a general purpose language and use nothing else, except for C in some places. Professionally speaking, it's better to know very well a language that's good for most jobs than to know a specialized language.

To give you an example of this principle, there are some people who specialize in databases, they know a lot of SQL. I have some knowledge of SQL, enough to query and update a table. I do all the complex data handling using Python objects, the SQL experts would use joins for this same job. When it comes to accessing an SQL database, we come out even, but when the data must be read from a website, for instance, the SQL experts are lost while I do it in Python without much effort.

Re:lame

[magarity]

2 Years MS-SQL 2008 experience
 
Fixed that for ya...

Re:lame

[chthon]

You're a developer to my heart.

As is the response below.

Re:lame

[dasunt]

The iPod just plays music.

It doesn't make me cool, hip and edgy?

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he/she doesn't have an account?

Re:lame

[gbjbaanb]

Putting the end user first is an admirable but misplaced sentiment.

The customer is always right. They pay your salary.

You can continue to put yourself first, but you may find your more customer-focussed competitors do rather better than you.

PS. most business apps are still MS-based, and Java is an increasingly irrelevent tech on Windows. MS is making sure of that by pulling developers to .Net as fast as they can.

Re:lame

[Poltras]

The good news is that the MS guys know about it, and it seems that some cleanup is on the TODO list - hopefully scheduled for 4.0, as it will be a "breaking" release (like 2.0 was with respect to 1.x), so they can change more things.

Just like they knew about Win16 flaws when they made Win32. Just like they knew about GDI flaws when making GDI+. Just like they knew Win32 had flaws that inherited from Win16 when they made the 64-bits version and the Pocket PC version of the API...

The only well designed API that ever came out from Microsoft was .Net, and they are slowly working on that so it's not so good anymore.

May I note that Objective-C had observable properties for every object out there (as well as keying for those) and it's not slow?

Re:lame

[db32]

Ok...lets examine this for a moment because I keep hearing this and it is patently stupid. I am ok with a good selection of languages for a variety of tasks, but "who cares how many languages" is stupid.

Lets fast forward a bit more. Now we have a huge variety of redundanat languages in use. Now we have two major problems.

1. Finding a job gets very very difficult. I already have seen jobs asking for 10 years experience in things that haven't been around for 10 years. Adding an alphabet soup worth of programming languagse is sure going to make that tech sector job hunt better... Oh, well...all our code was made by the last guy who called himself a programmer and he used this bizarre alphabet soup of redundant proprietary languages, so we need experience in that.
2. Finding an employee gets very very difficult. Well congratulations...you are stuck with a bunch of projects written in obscure proprietary garbage languages...now you have to find someone who can maintain that after you let yourself be coded into a corner by your last programmer. Talk about an excellent morale builder "Hello, welcome to company X, we either need you to learn these obscure languages to maintain this ductape and paperclip code, or you need to port everything that was done by the person that talked us into the latest and greatest alphabet soup language that turned out to be crap but we didn't know better because we aren't programmers."

Ugh...I have watched this crap happen way too many times in the field to listen to that "a new language for every purpose" crap. I don't expect everything to be coded in one language, and some languages are indeed better in certain regards...but to constantly invent new languages is bullshit. Especially when we are dealing with companies like Microsoft who's primary interest isnt building a better tool to get the job done, but building a better tool to enforce vendor lock in.

Re:lame

[Z00L00K]

Maybe they should do some real cleanup and dump that horrible language Visual Basic.

But in reality - there may be need for some language re-thinking to obtain the most from multi-core processors.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

with the express versions of sql server 2008 and visual studio 2008 that only leaves the price for a server 2008 licence, which is quite worth it imho. unless you are a top 500 company, the express versions will probably do the job just as good.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Another language from "M"icrosoft only serves one purpose.. To cloak the real wearbouts of the Windows Kernel in another layer of inpeneterable software

What was wrong with 100% assembly, DOS, (OS/2) anyway? Why further digitally clutter every thing under the hood of a windows platform

"In god I trust,
"for the rest i use my debugger"

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.

M helps you reach your goal of being completely locking in your company to Microsoft products.

The iPod just plays music.

Right... the iPod "just plays music", but locked-in with Apple. Is it any better?

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

well, thats why employers will someday understand if you have a solid background in fundamentals, learning a new syntax doesn't take very long.

Seriously, one quick book read, and its pretty easy to migrate to another language.

Re:lame

[Blakey Rat]

"Throwing shit and seeing what sticks" is as valid a tactic as anything else.

Re:lame

[Your.Master]

He's a developer contemplating using MS enterprise tools. He is doing something very serious on it.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

The customer is always right. They pay your salary

If customers were always right, most companies would be out of business by now.

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

Just like they knew about Win16 flaws when they made Win32. Just like they knew about GDI flaws when making GDI+. Just like they knew Win32 had flaws that inherited from Win16 when they made the 64-bits version and the Pocket PC version of the API...

Well, they did deliver on WPF - which, incomplete or slow as it may be now, is definitely based on a solid and proper design for a change (finally, a proper UI framework from MS!), and is actually getting better with every minor release (3.0 - 3.5 - 3.5 SP1).

So, maybe things did change?

As for Win64 API - surely you understand that the reason why it is what it is is because they wanted to make it so that any well-behaved Win32 app (i.e., the one which used correct typedefs throughout and didn't make wrong assumptions) could be just recompiled as 64-bit without any changes? I'd say that it was a sensible goal, and the one they have reasonably succeeded at.

May I note that Objective-C had observable properties for every object out there (as well as keying for those) and it's not slow?

ObjC is inherently slower due to its dynamic nature. Adding observable properties to a language with true dynamic dispatch is not much overhead, because the calls are alreayd slow. Adding it to a statically-typed language with vtable-based or outright static dispatch (remember, C# is non-virtual-by-default) is a lot of overhead. You can check it for yourself - make a simple entity class, and measure performance for property mutators with and without your own handwritten INotifyPropertyChanged implementation.

In general, though, it does seem to be a trend to move to observable-throughout for business/entity classes with the advent of WPF (but not for core framework classes - I mean, really, why would you need an observable Stream, or TextReader, or DbDataReader?). But then again, it's not hard to just use ObservableCollection everywhere, either...

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew a he/she once... intriguing yet disturbing

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

because I don't feel like making an account :)

Re:lame

[sp3d2orbit]

I agree with the original post, MS's language designers seem more interested in implementing the "latest and greatest" and tend to neglect those things programmers need.

To start, C# should have been a progressive enhancement to C++, not a breaking rewrite. That way my years of C++ coding could be easily compiled on to the .NET framework. C++/CLI is not a solution since you can't mix native and managed objects.

Second, I'd like to see existing features smoothed out. Static objects in C# are great as Singletons, but you still can't inherit them.

The generic collections are great, but there is no partial specialization. The enumerators are great, but there is no easy way to foreach in reverse.

LINQ is OK, but I'd rather be able to call my stored procedures as native functions.

I think we're so trained to move to the latest language or framework we forget that means torching years of experience and mountains of existing code.

Re:lame

[Spiked_Three]

"it's not hard to just use ObservableCollection everywhere"

yes, it is hard. Try coupling it to a sortable collection. How many Listviews have you ever seen that you couldn't click a header and sort by that column? I can't think of any. And thus the chaos - when you actually try to tie it all together you MUST write code yourself. And in my experience, the code is not insignificant, it falls apart easily. I am sure they (MS) will work it all out, but at the moment it (WPF/LINQ) fails for real use on anything other than a flashy demo.

Re:lame

[iluvcapra]

The GP and you are both right on observable properties in Obj-C, I'm not sure why he'd whip out a claim like it was "really fast," though 90% of the time you're doing all your key-value work in response to events, and it seems fast because you aren't doing it very often. ObjC doesn't have observable NSStream's, NSPorts or other such things thank goodness.

The big hole in .NET's observer pattern support would appear to be that you cannot receive notifications when a property WILL change. We use this all over the place in Cocoa and it's very important when you're allocating resources or maintaing entities in an object graph.

Re:lame

[darkpixel2k]

This seems dubious to me.
Your company is sticking Microsoft bits (Word, etc.) where they don't really need to go, thus, the fault is yours

Exactly. Why not build in a requirement for Microsoft Office? It didn't cost us anything. ...oh...the customer is going to have to buy it? Oh well. That's ok.

Since our developers are lazy and don't care about the end cost to the customer, they choose whatever is the easiest for them.

The end user is gaining legitimate value from that integration that probably outweighs what they're paying. For example, if the end users actually need to manipulate or tinker with the data your reports spit out for them, probably being able to do it in a program that they're very used to (Excel) is worth the price.

I could argue that integration point a bit differently. Go buy a new BMW, a new cell phone, and a new car adapter. Integrate them and pay $30,000 to travel from point A to point B while talking on your cell phone.

Now go buy a new Suzuki Swift, a new cell phone, and a new adapter...and you will pay $15,000 to get from point A to point B while being able to chat on your cell phone.

I'll take the less expensive option.
And where the analogy breaks down is that if you buy the BMW option, you must buy BMW forever.

Re:lame

[darkpixel2k]

The iPod just plays music.

It doesn't make me cool, hip and edgy?

I don't know--didn't Steve Jobs just predict the downfall of the iPod--saying something about how the market is flooded. ...so if everyone has one, are you 'cool, hip, and edgy' still, or does it mean you are following the masses...which makes you a conformist...which is against everything Apple stands for. Damn--my brain hurts.

Re:lame

[syousef]

The customer is always right. They pay your salary.

That's a bone headed thing to say. Let's say you're a builder. If the customer insists you build a house out of matchsticks using only a toothbrush, you better let them know it won't work and will violate code, that you can't legally proceed and that the house will fall down anyway if you try. If they still insist that you continue, your only good option is to quit that piece of work.

_Usually_ if you're working as a professional, the customer will be reasonable, as it is in their own best interests that you succeed. That doesn't mean people are always reasonable.

You can continue to put yourself first, but you may find your more customer-focussed competitors do rather better than you.

You mean those people that promise the impossible and deliver shoddy work. Yeah I can't compete with that. I'm forced to pick clients that aren't idiots.

PS. most business apps are still MS-based, and Java is an increasingly irrelevent tech on Windows. MS is making sure of that by pulling developers to .Net as fast as they can.

You're talking rubbish. Go check the employment figures and job ads. Java's by far the most common platform at the moment. .NET is second but not everyone's happy with proprietary lockin.

Re:lame

[Hucko]

He has been eaten by a grue

Re:lame

[Hucko]

This past week I used an iMac -- the AUD1599 1gb ram model -- for two days (20+ previous years on Dos, Windows and linux successively). I noted that to get similar performance from Vista required major beefing on many machines -- it was non-consistently variable depending on manufacturer for some reason... Working it out was too much hassle so hence the major beefing. I'm very impressed. In most areas it stands heads and shoulders other systems. Proprietary lock in, minimal window management and mouse usage are the biggest gripes... a problem on Windows anyway.

It is almost enough to get me to switch.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed and Perfectly said.

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[Mozk]

I use foobar2000 to put music on my iPod.

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[mferrare]

That's what Ada was for.

Re:lame

[stuffduff]

Mumps has been suffering a lot of disrespect over the years. Mainstream computing has largely turned away from mumps, but mumps continues as both an excellent language but also as the primary, well tested and proven alternative to relational databases. Unfortunately, for the better part of two generations, computer science has turned its back on anything that wasn't tied to relational databases. The immature alternatives that are just starting to look outside the limitations of the relational database are grabbing all the attention. Couple this with Microsodt's ignorance and arrogance and what have you got? Hype, but no substance.

Re:lame

[hfybro]

great. another language to learn that is completely useless and no one will use.. And I'm not trolling, this glut of languages is fucking ridiculous. Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

great. another language to learn that is completely useless and no one will use.. And I'm not trolling, this glut of languages is fucking ridiculous. Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

WE ARE STILL AT C LANGUAGE CAN NOT MAKE IT TO M AND P SORRY ENERGY IN THE BATTERY IS GONE WITH UNCLE SAM DR. C

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

yes, it is hard. Try coupling it to a sortable collection. How many Listviews have you ever seen that you couldn't click a header and sort by that column? I can't think of any.

You don't need a sortable collection for that - it's up to ListView to do that. And in WinForms, it does, without the need for you to do anything; the fact that WPF ListView doesn't is a bug in the latter (and is somewhat remedied by their new WPF Grid).

If you actually need your own observable sorted collection, well, that's why INotifyCollectionChanged is an interface, right? You implement it yourself the way you want, WPF (or whatever) picks it up and uses it. ObservableCollection is just a way to save time doing it for by far the most common case out there.

but at the moment it (WPF/LINQ) fails for real use on anything other than a flashy demo.

I honestly don't see what our previous discussion has to do with LINQ. I can only tell you that we have production software here (sold shrink-wrapped) written in WinForms that uses INotifyPropertyChanged, IBindingList, WinForms databinding, and LINQ (Objects/XML) throughout, and the combo works quite well; and we are strongly considering WPF for the next version (primarily because its databinding is so much better, it has decent dynamic layouting, and WPF Grid is finally here).

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

The big hole in .NET's observer pattern support would appear to be that you cannot receive notifications when a property WILL change.

Since .NET implementation of Observable/Observer is entirely hand-coded (i.e., the class implementer has to raise an event whenever he mutates the state), there's no restriction on you raising one event before the state changes, and another one after. In fact, there are stock interfaces for both "before" and "after" events - INotifyPropertyChanging and INotifyPropertyChanged, respectively. The problem is that the former one was introduced rather late in the game (in .NET 3.5), and is not really used anywhere in the BCL itself (or WPF, or other libraries), so not many know that it even exists, and fewer still actually bother to implement it.

Re:lame

[Poltras]

The GP and you are both right on observable properties in Obj-C, I'm not sure why he'd whip out a claim like it was "really fast," though 90% of the time you're doing all your key-value work in response to events, and it seems fast because you aren't doing it very often.

I didn't say it was "really fast", I just did say it wasn't "slow". Not weaseling my way out - I know every call through a virtual hash-table will be slower than a vtable, I've done enough Obj-C and C++. (Obj-C 2.1 hopes to solve part of this problem) But, as you and someone said, in the context it's not much slower to use observers and key-value coding than using the same method calls.

Key-Value is almost there in .Net, and I hope the Observer pattern will get much farther than it is now. Like you rightly said, it plays a major part in slimming down your designs (and thus give free elegancy most of the time) and playing around with objects and their relations to each others, decoupling use and maintenance of data.

Love your sig, btw.

Re:lame

[Sobrique]

It's a bit harder to say 'I know how to code' than it is to provide evidence that 'I know how to do something specific, in a specific language'. And a bit harder to measure, too.

You're quite correct thought - my degree taught me 'programming techniques' rather than 'how to write in a particular language'. It's served me quite well, as I can basically port to ... whatever, provided it's approximately similar in paradigm. But I'd have a hard time proving to a potential employer that given 4 hours I can write whatever language they happen to like with moderate utility.

Re:lame

[jcupitt65]

how do you get that music onto the iPod? Oh yeah, you need to install iTunes

iTunes is nice on OS X at least. There are plenty of alternative ways of getting the music on there if you don't like iTunes. Windows friends seem to like Mediamonkey or WinAmp.

Re:lame

[Jaykul]

Unless you're Apple. Then the iPod helps you reach your goal of guiding lusers in to your music, tv, and movie purchasing master plan...

Re:lame

[db32]

There is still a significant spin up time with a new language, and many languages aren't designed around good fundamental behaviors. Especially when the primary purpose of the language is to serve as a competing product rather than a useful language. I'm not a coder by profession, but I do have do some coding from time to time. I steer very clear of those implementation specific vendor specific lock in garbage languages.

I can't count how many times I have heard "Why don't you just do that in VB, its way easier". Great...so working with Windows crap is easier in a Windows specific language. Programming shouldn't be easy for the same reason building jets or engineering bridges shouldn't be easy. There are horrible consequences when you lower the bar enough that every amature with a keyboard can work in a "professional" realm. I am convinced thats why we have so many problems in security in general. You can listen to the radio and hear a dozen "Get your MCSE at Computers-R-Us now and triple your income!". So now anyone can drop a fist full of cash, get a shiney sticker, and go to work in a field they really aren't qualified to because they will accept less money than someone who IS qualified.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

The M language is actually an existing ISO standard. There are a number of products actually based on M and one such company, Intersystems, actually have a lawsuit involving Microsoft about offices in Cambridge (http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/08/14/for_microsoft_not_all_is_neighborly_in_cambridge/).

Intersystems' Cache database is based on M and I wonder if this move by Microsoft is actually intended to piss them off ('cause prejudice' in the legal sense) to Intersystems. They could at least named theirs M# :-)

Re:lame

[ClubStew]

the standard collections don't have INotifyPropertyChange support across the board

Changing something in a framework that's been out for several releases is generally not good practice. You run the risk of regressing customers that might expect it to work exactly a certain way.

Re:lame

[Sobrique]

That there is. But as long as you understand how it should be done, then you're able to ... well, start with the basics, and work up to idioms far quicker than learning from scratch. Whilst the exact mode of array implementation in a given language isn't necessarily something you know, you'll know that what you want _is_ an array, and thus you might need a few algorithms to go with it.

I personally hate VB, because every time I've heard someone declare it 'easier' I've gone on to see them pull out a wodge of utter bodge coding, which is basically unmaintainable. Because they didn't understand what a program was _supposed_ to be like, and VB let them do it. I'm currently working on one bit, that's a really ugly botch of 'goto' style code, but with a few prototyped procedures in there, just to throw me off the scent. It looks a lot like 5 different sets of copy-pasta code, and it's ... well, I'm still itching for the time to do a full rewrite, and have almost justified it based upon the amount of extra lead time any form of modification to this ugly hack job is taking.

Erm. Which I think's agreeing with what you said :).

Someone who knows how to program, knows that http://mindprod.com/jgloss/unmain.html is a comedy site, even if they don't know the specifics of a given language.

Re:lame

[db32]

I typically only run into that looking over someone else's shoulder since my job isn't coding, but I can generally decypher enough to know when something really stupid is being done. I always feel a twinge of guilt as I walk away laughing at their impossible task. But hey, my job is typically untangling infrastructure (both physical and logical) so the whining programmers have it easy since they can make a whole copy and test. Trying to unknot an infrastructure problem without causing downtime is worlds worse than mucking with a copy of some misbehaving code.

Re:lame

[Spiked_Three]

I'm not saying it can't be done.

But how much of your shrink wrapped product was plumbing that should have been built in? Or put another way, how much of what you wrote will be replaced by library code in a future release? Like I said, it's a natural progression, often used code SHOULD be replaced by library code, it is just a matter of where you draw the line between a mature product and one that is having some growing pains.

I'll admit I have not looked in depth at the SP1 beta/previews (is it out for real yet?), and a lot of my frusteration is having to hand code XAML because Blend is such a half finished product. I'm in no hurry, I'll wait until it ferments some more.

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

But how much of your shrink wrapped product was plumbing that should have been built in? Or put another way, how much of what you wrote will be replaced by library code in a future release?

Not that much, really, but it's also because we paid for and used quite a few third-party components, where good and inexpensive ones were available.

I'll admit I have not looked in depth at the SP1 beta/previews (is it out for real yet?)

Yep. The release date was August 11, 2008. They also say they'll push it via Windows Update to customers by the end of the year.

and a lot of my frusteration is having to hand code XAML because Blend is such a half finished product. I'm in no hurry, I'll wait until it ferments some more.

I would second that, though I don't really mind hand-coding XAML - like HTML, it's effectively designed to be hand-coded (though I wish something like Matisse in NetBeans was available for WPF!). But it is certainly still a developing framework, and, for example, that advanced grid control by MS that I've mentioned earlier is a separate download, and is currently in the CTP stage (though it will be released by the end of the year, most likely, which is just in time for us...). Nonetheless, the stuff that I see there already is quite impressive, and there are certainly a lot of things that are done the Right Way (unlike WinForms, which was really mostly just a clone of the existing popular frameworks of its time, namely Delphi's VCL, the nameless VB6 UI framework, and J++'s WFC).

Re:lame

[IflyRC]

In other words, if you want to be locked into using and paying extortionate fees for Microsoft technologies until the end of time, go ahead. Use Visual Studio. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Isn't it the same for Oracle? Ever looked at Oracle Financials and how many Oracle consultants it takes to implement? How about IBM and websphere...which does provide support for other things like Active Directory...but prefers Tivoli. If you want to use ASP with Websphere you have to go with Mainsoft...which builds their conversion framework on Mono. OMG, now I'm hooked to Mono?!

Re:lame

[I8TheWorm]

"copies of Microsoft Office 2007 to be able to read the reports it spits out in Word 2007 format"

Poor design choice there. Just because VS is used doesn't mean the reports have to be produced in docx format.

Re:lame

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

s/VBA/Bash/

And on *nix, you don't ever have to "justify having dev tools installed".

I wonder if your lowered productivity has been factored into the TCO of using Microsoft products. I bet it hasn't.

Re:lame

[Spiked_Three]

It had been a while since I had written any code, but I have been doing some again lately, and thought I'd share with you on it.

The problem I have is that LINQ doesn't implement IObservableCollection. You get a set from LINQ and bind it to a listbox for example. Since the properties DO implement INotifyPropertyChanged whenever you make changes they do appear in the UI as expected, but, if you add entities (insertOnSubmit) or delete (deleteOnSubmit) the UI does not get updated. This is the kind of disconnect I am talking about (along with the general disconnect on sortable views etc.) It seems MS half implemented data binding.

I finally did get around to installing SP1 - of course it broke as much as it fixed :( I had to undo the kludges I made before SP1 (now fixed), and then add in new ones for post SP1. MS is just having problems keeping up with the complexity of their own designs.

Yes, I will agree I think WPF is a huge step in the right direction - now if everything else would just catch up to it. It's night and day ahead of flash.

What were some of the tools that you used? My experience with a couple I tried was, like MS, only half implemented.

Re:lame

[shutdown -p now]

The problem I have is that LINQ doesn't implement IObservableCollection.

Okay, let's stop right here. What kind of LINQ? LINQ to Objects/XML/DataSet cannot implement IObservableCollection by definition - it doesn't deal with collections at all, it deals with lazy sequences and operations on them, Haskell-style. You can, of course, always create an ObservableCollection out of that.

If you mean LINQ to SQL & Entities, then it doesn't make its result sequences observable for the same reason why a plain ADO.NET query result rowset is not observable - because a result of a query is always a static rowset in ADO.NET. Again, you can wrap that rowset into an ObservableCollection, but if you want to track changes directly in the database, that's not what you want, and I don't know any way of doing it short of memoizing the query in your own IObservableCollection wrapper, using whatever mechanisms the DB backend offers to track changes in the database, if any (e.g. MSSQL has some subscriber-based notification mechanism, though I didn't look much into it), and re-executing the query whenever changes are made.

Or did I miss something, and you meant something else entirely?

Re:lame

[Spiked_Three]

Sigh, truly a DBAs idea of what is good enough for developers. MS has indeed had the problem of understanding what a programmer wants.

Everything I have read or seen indicated it wasn't implemented because they just didn't have time to finish it up, not some design limitation. In fact if LINQ is a stepping stone to Microsoft's persistent object strategy and they left it out, then they are pretty much clueless. NHIbernate works as expected, DevExpress XPO works as expected, Bindable LINQ adds it to some extent, and the list goes on. I would be willing to bet some release of LINQ in the near future will properly implement it.

Yeah I understand what you are saying about it being a lazy sequence, but that is a DBAs take on it. Anders was (thank gosh) not a DBA type. He explicitly stated the goal as trying to reduce the mismatch between Code and Databases. As a coder I could care less what the underlying mechanism is, I want to write code with objects and collections, and have the act like objects and collections. If I wanted to write code that talked to a database then what is already in place is fine.

If the intention was a static result set then why would I be able to make changes to an object and persist those changes with a 'submit' statement? I don't think the intentions are static at all. In my code now, I do not even define a query (yes the underlying codebase might). I reference DB.MyTable as a collection - there is nothing in that that conveys static. When I add a row to it, I expect that additional row to reflected in the collection (and the underlying table). I think you nailed the problem on the head, someone with a clue came up with a good idea, but left it to a bunch of database oriented clueless developers to implment it and they spun their impression of how it should be on it.

Not a problem

[overshoot]

While some say the language is simply their 'D' language renamed to a further letter down the alphabet, the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows."

That's not a bug, that's a feature.

Re:Not a problem

[emj]

It's almost the only thing the article mentions, you can't go more than three paragraphs before you get "MS sucks the tied D with MSSQL server". I would be interested in knowing what D is. Is there someone with a good article about M or D if that's what it is?

fanboy central here we come..

Re:Not a problem

[zukinux]

It's almost the only thing the article mentions, you can't go more than three paragraphs before you get "MS sucks the tied D with MSSQL server". I would be interested in knowing what D is. Is there someone with a good article about M or D if that's what it is?

fanboy central here we come..

Hey,
It originated as a re-engineering of C++, but even though it is predominantly influenced by that language, it is not a variant of C++. D has redesigned some C++ features and has been influenced by concepts used in other programming languages, such as Java, C# and Eiffel. A stable version, 1.0, was released on January 2, 2007.
Here's a little explanation taken from wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_programming_language more info can be found on http://www.digitalmars.com/d Good luck!

Re:Not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

D seems to be a "declarative language aimed at non-developers."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1159&tag=mncol;txt

Re:Not a problem

[Tunfisch]

That's a different D.

Microsoft's D is "a new declarative programming language [...] that is expected to serve as a textual modeling language that will let business managers and non-technical stakeholders manipulate digital assets."

(http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/58675/)

Re:Not a problem

[zukinux]

That's a different D.

Microsoft's D is "a new declarative programming language [...] that is expected to serve as a textual modeling language that will let business managers and non-technical stakeholders manipulate digital assets."

(http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/58675/)

If so, they should have thought of a better name, cause this letter is already taken :)

Re:Not a problem

[ColdWetDog]

If so, they should have thought of a better name, cause this letter is already taken :)

Their first thought was BASIC, but alas, it too was already taken.

Re:Not a problem

[CableModemSniper]

It's been "already taken" multiple times, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(disambiguation)#Computing

Re:Not a problem

[klapaucjusz]

Ahem, no.

There's more than one programming language called D.

There's Digital Mars D, which is what you describe. And there's Microsoft D, which is almost, but not quite, completely unlike Digital Mars D.

Re:Not a problem

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Well, it has enough buzz words. IMHO, Business managers and non-technical stakeholders shouldn't be writing code in any language.

Re:Not a problem

[jd]

Digital Mars D actually looks quite good, but the GCC frontend seems to have stopped development and there's a dearth of other implementations - at least that I could find - that would be binary-compatible. Anyone have any suggestions?

Re:Not a problem

[CodeBuster]

that is expected to serve as a textual modeling language that will let business managers and non-technical stakeholders manipulate digital assets.

Worst Idea Ever...the last thing that we need in the software profession is more dabblers manipulating things which they have no real understanding of using powerful new "tools" to muck around in a live system. Would you hand your 5-year old a bazooka and tell him to just "have fun"? These are the same people who end up with a workstation full of downloader trojans, bot servers, adware and other assorted junk and this qualifies them to make technical judgments and "manipulate digital assets" how exactly? Microsoft should concentrate on creating better quality software so that non-technical users can concentrate on their real jobs instead of becoming dabblers and part time pseudo-developers in projects that are best left to the professional software developers.

Re:Not a problem

[Legion_SB]

The great thing about D is that the name alone clues you in as to how well it grades out...

Re:Not a problem

[mpe]

I would be interested in knowing what D is. Is there someone with a good article about M or D if that's what it is?

Presumably with "M" you get asked in you'd like fries as well :)

Re:Not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a feature, that's an enhancement.

Re:Not a problem

[whereiswaldo]

I wish language developers would stop using a single letter as the language name. Have fun searching for "M" on the Internet.

Re:Not a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Could people stop calling their language by the grade it got?

Re:Not a problem

[Ignacio]

So wait...

They have their own M, derived from their own D?

If anyone needed further proof that Microsoft likes to confuse people for its benefit, here it is.

Re:Not a problem

[triso]

That's a different D.

Microsoft's D is "a new declarative programming language [...] that is expected to serve as a textual modeling language that will let business managers and non-technical stakeholders manipulate digital assets."

(http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/58675/)

If so, they should have thought of a better name, cause this letter is already taken :)

No worries, mate. Microsoft will just sue and then settle out of court for a pittance.

Sorry, that name is taken (sort of)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

But Microsoft doesn't care.

Re:Sorry, that name is taken (sort of)

[Anonymous Coward]

why should they care? the winner takes it all...

music

[nerdonamotorcycle]

Does it whistle "In the Hall of the Mountain King"?

Re:music

[uglyduckling]

Not after you've hit it with a hammer a few times.

Re:music

[smittyoneeach]

I thought non-edged weapons were VB-only...

Re:music

[ogl_codemonkey]

These are not the hammer.

Not the current D

[PhrostyMcByte]

So apparently Microsoft tried to make their own "D" long ago and failed. It's not talking about the current D from Digital Mars. The article had me confused for a few minutes there.

Re:Not the current D

[encoderer]

This makes no sense.

You're out of your depth.

Wait for the next FP post on WoW or something similarly inane.

Re:Not the current D

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also not the same as Sun's "D" programming language.

At this point, I'm inclined to think that anybody who names a programming language "D" lacks any sense of creativity. If you think you can make the Next Big Thing after C/C++, but can't do better than calling it "D", I suspect the language itself is similarly uninspired.

Story Mirror

[Anthony_Cargile]

From thecoffeedesk.com:

In a software-centric world where we already have many, many languages to program in, from scripting to bytecode compiled languages, to frameworks on top of languages and embedded languages, now Redmond wants to bring ANOTHER language to the table, titled âMâ(TM) (for Microsoft?).

The new language is to be a part of Microsoftâ(TM)s new Oslo development and service-oriented strategy, incorporating features from XAML while being textual and domain-specific. M is to be used directly with 2 other components to be released with M along with Visual Studio 2010: Quadrant, a tool for building models visually, and a repository for storing and viewing models in an SQL database.

Microsoft has not said much other than that about the new language, but it will presumably be a compiled .net language (goodbye true native code), and from what Microsoft said, M is to strive to be cross-platformâ¦. with a catch.

By âoecross platformâ, Microsoft means, âoecross platform as long the other platform authors write a backend for the code, and the SQL database MUST be hosted on MS SQL, a proprietary Microsoft Windows serviceâ. It makes perfect sense for being cross platform, if you are Microsoft and trying to purchase many copies of Windows (therefore generating revenue, and presumably the version is Vista or win2k8 since XP is out).

Another source says the language is actually their âDâ(TM) language, only revamped to fit into their new Oslo modeling strategy and renamed to a further letter down the alphabet to attract new interest in an old product. While this may be mostly true, D, which was never really promoted as a .net compilable language (it just kinda disappeared) had many flaws and never really caught on although some were enthusiastic about it (just like Bill Gates said we would write code for OS/2 for the next 10 years after its release).

The fundamentals and principals of the language are attractive, especially for OOP, but its ties to MS SQL and .net would only really make it attractive to Windows-specific applications, although its integration with ASP.net is unclear at this point. The mono project does a descent job of allowing .net code to run on non-windows platforms, and if M adheres to the same standards then after a given time M-written applications will be penguin-friendly as well if Microsoft can get around the MS SQL dependency.

Time will only tell how many will actually use the language outright before Microsoft finds a way to force programmers to use it, most likely by dropping support for some features in all languages except M to promote its usage. For now it appears that the only âoenon-visualâ C/C++ code encouraged for usage with Windows by Microsoft is in fact Windows itself, given the fact that Microsoftâ(TM)s programmers are on Microsoftâ(TM)s payroll. But if all newbie programmers learn these new languages, who will manage the billions of lines of C and C++ we currently use in the future, unless it is implied to be completely be rewritten? Iâ(TM)m sure the folks from the original Bell labs team would be interested in the answer to these questions as well.

Gotta love the slashdot effect.

Re:Story Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Karma whore.

More people should use D.

[Ant P.]

It's a really nice-looking language, the major flaw is there's hardly anyone using it.

And unlike the article seems to be making out, it isn't made by MS at all.

Re:More people should use D.

[LingNoi]

I think the article is talking about a different D programming language, not the one from Digital Mars.

Re:More people should use D.

[AceofSpades19]

There supposedly was an MS D before the digital mars D I think

That sound that you hear...

[zappepcs]

is the sound of a company dieing ... seriously. Yes, there will be those that call this post a troll, but look at the facts. What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision? What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world? World leaders they no longer are. The MS way of doing things is no longer the ONLY way to do things.

The more they try to launch products which are locked into their own ecosystem, the more people laugh. There are entire countries that have rejected MS products, never mind the users who do so on their own. When entire countries and industries reject your products you have a serious problem. MS has not and is not addressing that problem. They seem to be blindly going down the same road that led to this situation without concern for how they will make money in the next decade.

It amounts to basically a rotting corpse on the sidewalk with a beggars cup held out. That is just my opinion, and it stems from the lack of anything good or beneficial coming from MS. YMMV

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to be fair, a lot of organizations and governments that have "rejected" Microsoft products did so only to win a better deal. Some have managed to go with Linux or some other OS, but most have ended up back in Microsoft's hands (albeit with a substantial discount.)

Ha ... captcha is "pathetic."

Re:That sound that you hear...

[mindstormpt]

is the sound of a company dieing ... seriously. Yes, there will be those that call this post a troll, but look at the facts. What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision? What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world?

Windows Home Server actually received pretty good reviews, and it can be considered an improvement (mainly in the ease of use) on the current (non-geek) home server scene - the non-existing one that is. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'm looking forward to it (and no, I'm not a fanboy, I actually run 3 servers at home: windows, linux and freebsd).

Then there's Microsoft Research, which actually comes up with some great stuff, though most of it is not (yet) implementable on a commercial scale.

So I'll call your post a troll. That's just my opinion too.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[LingNoi]

As soon as I read "windows home server" my first thought was all the bad press about the file corruption problems and tbh that's one of the worse things that could happen, to loose all your family photos.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[miknix]

Then there's Microsoft Research, which actually clones up some great stuff, though most of it is not (yet) implementable on a commercial scale.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[pieisgood]

I don't know about you, but I would consider the Xbox 360 a rather large success for Microsoft. The 360 game pad? Best, in my opinion, on any system. Windows XP? Seems to be doing fairly well from my perspective. Adobe creating new products that give Windows an advantage over OSX because of hardware compatibility and support? That seems to be good for Microsoft. Certainly, Microsoft isn't doing them selves any favors, not until windows 7 is released with actual improvements. But, Software developers are developing for windows and continuing to keep Microsoft in a comfortable zone of Operating system dominance. TL;DR Microsoft isn't going anywhere.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

is the sound of a company dieing ... seriously. Yes, there will be those that call this post a troll, but look at the facts. What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision? What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world? World leaders they no longer are. The MS way of doing things is no longer the ONLY way to do things.

OK I'll bite, yes you are nothing but a troll. There market dominance is increasing in the server space and so is their profitability. Trolls like you only look at the bad stuff which any company that releases dozens of products a year will have, it is part of the business model. Hell their are still trolls that tout Vista as a failure even though it has 10 times the market share of OS.X and a 100 times the market share of desktop linux and makes them BILLIONS.

recent stuff that doesn't suck and is making them BILLIONS.
Sharepoint
Performance Point
SQL Server 2008
Visual Studio 2008
Windows Server 2008
their upcoming TMG server
Xbox 360
Windows Live Mesh

Do they make stuff that sucks, Sure. But that is far and away outweighed by the stuff that rocks and makes them billions.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[MBCook]

The 360 game pad really is very nice, but the D-pad is horrid. They need to improve it.

All said, I think MS is a pretty good company that has a ton of promise. The problem is they need to be broken up. They're like Sony was a few years ago (things have improved, a little)... they have no direction.

MS already have enough of their own languages (VB.net and C#), as well as others coming soon (F#), a shell they're inventing (PowerShell / Monad). They have interesting research products but they don't tend to make it to consumers most of the time.

MS has too much money to throw at projects like this that probably aren't that necessary. Some products linger around for years without enough help (Windows XP), many are constantly delayed (Vista was, we'll see it again). If the Mac Business Unit didn't release something named Office, you'd never know it was related to the "real" Office because the release schedules are so incredibly far apart.

If MS were split into a few little companies (maybe all under one big umbrella company) that could really make 'em fight against each other to prove how good they are, I think they could seriously improve their image.

I don't think Microsoft will last in it's current form. Something will have to change. A major strategy shift, a giant re-org, a slice across the product line (was having 7 different versions of Vista really a good idea?). Something will happen.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Raenex]

is the sound of a company dieing

Oh, my eyes. It's spelled dying.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[mikael]

What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world? World leaders they no longer are. The MS way of doing things is no longer the ONLY way to do things.

That is the main Microsoft strategy of dominating any field in the computer industry. With any established field in the computer industry, there are experienced veterans who will be reluctant to switch over to Microsoft products simple because Microsoft tells them to.

The solution is to create a "hive mind" culture where the collective experience of veterans are outnumbered by the vast number of entry-level graduates led by the Microsoft architectural teams. Then they can make the veterans appear out of date and take over the direction of the industry. The way to achieve this is to create a brand-new data format or language that graduates feel it is necessary to learn in order to find employment. So Microsoft has to keep pumping out all these "new" programming languages/API's.

Examples: C++ vs. Microsoft MFC / .NET
                    OpenGL vs. DirectX
                    Open Document Format vs. OOXML

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Power Pack 1 fixed this issue"

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anthony_Cargile]

"If MS were split into a few little companies (maybe all under one big umbrella company) that could really make 'em fight against each other to prove how good they are, I think they could seriously improve their image. "

You mean like steve jobs's Macintosh team vs. Lisa team BS? Maybe it would actually get Balmer fired from MS like Jobs...

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Malevolyn]

Hell their are still trolls that tout Vista as a failure even though it has 10 times the market share of OS.X and a 100 times the market share of desktop linux and makes them BILLIONS.

Market share != quality.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[DavidD_CA]

Off the top of my head, from a non-geek (consumer) point of view in terms of sales and/or non-experience and buzz:

• X-Box 360
• Office 2007
• Groove
• Photosynth

And from a geek perspective:

• Exchange Server 2007
• Windows Server 2008
• IE 8
• Silverlight
• Expression

And frankly, you can piss on Vista all you want, but I have yet to actually talk to a non-geek that's running Vista who doesn't like it.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[m.ducharme]

I think GP meant something a little more dramatic, like cutting loose big chunks of the company along natural fault lines, like splitting off the OS, gaming, office software divisions, and making them sink or swim on their own merits as separate companies. I think this might actually be a decent idea, as it would force lagging and stagnant divisions/products to innovate, instead of relying on the success of other divisions to prop them up. It would also have the added benefit of mollifying anti-trust watchdogs around the world.

Of course this would be a pretty risky move, so I'm not holding my breath.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

• SharePoint: never heard anything good about it, and no shop I've ever worked for has touched it
• PerformancePoint: literally never heard of it before now
• SQL Server 2008: ok, that's actually comparable to rivals, because everyone else's standards support is equally lousy
• Visual Studio 2008: so amazing that every Microsoft dev I met uses gvim by preference
• Windows Server 2008: who cares? the compelling Longhorn features were all dropped!
• Xbox 360: when your quality problems reach the mainstream media, you've really screwed up
• Threat Management Gateway, Live Mesh: we don't know yet whether these are going to suck, and they certainly aren't making BILLIONS when they aren't out yet

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Stan Vassilev]

What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision?

That's one of the problems of reading Slashdot and related sites a lot. But I don't blame you. You can see a similar "imaginary world" skewed perspectives from people watching FOX News alot.

As for the rest of us, developer tools, language design, is one of the areas where Microsoft unquestionable excels. And this article is incidentally about release in that area.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Sentry21]

There's definitely a point here. It seems like people are fleeing the lock-in inherent in Microsoft's products, and Microsoft's reaction to that is to try and make products to lure people back into the lock-in, rather than make products that don't have it.

It reminds me of my cell carrier. They have a 'feature' which sends you a text message when you miss a call, which is bundled with Visual Voicemail and caller ID. The problem is that it's annoying, often hours behind reality, and no one wants it. In fact, everyone I've talked to (including employees) hate it. So many people called to complain about it and get it taken off their bundle that management started paying attention.

So when the problem is that a huge percentage of your customers hate a feature enough to demand it be disabled, the solution is apparently obvious: forbid customer service from disabling it. Effectively, they have forbidden their agents from giving the customer what they want, in the hopes that people will be happier when forced into something, rather than when given a choice to opt-out.

The same can be said of Microsoft. There are a lot of smart, talented people at Microsoft who are being paid to do anti-user things in anti-user ways. Management seems to believe that if A requires B, then they'll sell A and B and end up with happy customers that have an integrated solution. They don't seem to realize that the prevailing attitude is now 'if A requires B and I don't want B, I'll get A from somewhere else' and that's why Microsoft is losing out.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[rdnetto]

What about the .NET Framework? I'd say that it is one of the easiest development platforms to use, especially since you can mix and match languages.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[rdnetto]

The 360 game pad really is very nice, but the D-pad is horrid.

I agree that the controller is quite good, but the D-pad isn't really much of a problem - the only games that use it just use it as a set of hot keys, like the XYAB keys.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[compro01]

I'd contest the 360's place on that list. The failure rate has got to be hurting them, not to mention I'm pretty sure they sell the box itself at a loss and try to make it up on the games.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[MBCook]

True, but that's because it's non-functional.

When I first got my XBox 360 I went around trying to create my user account and such and just about went nuts. It was taking FOREVER to type any text in, because it was so difficult to move the cursor left or right (or up or down) without hitting another direction.

I finally finished by using the analog stick for digital movement. The D-pad is completely unusable for anything other than a really simple set of four hot keys. It can't be used for precision.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[MBCook]

Right. I'm thinking more of a XBox company, an Office company, a server company (Exchange, MS SQL, etc), maybe a Windows company (possibly two), software company (MS Trips, utility programs, etc), hardware (mice, keyboards, Zune, etc), 'net (Live mail, Live search...), whatever.

I can see a ton of benefits to this, the competition aspect is the one I'm thinking of as most important. That plus the sink or swim aspect. The Zune guys know that MS will continue to exist next year with or without them. They can do very little and be OK. If they were more on their own, they'd have to fight to survive. Being a big company can allow MS to take big risks, but they don't seem to do it. The riskiest thing I see they've done in quite a while was the new interface for Office (which is hit and miss).

I agree it won't happen, at least the way I describe. If it were to happen it will either be government intervention (which I think we've seen to be useless right now) or the company starts sinking and starts spinning off divisions.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[BhaKi]

The .NET Framework is the easiest way of developing things for Windows. (Read: The .NET Framework is the most lucrative trap)

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, I'm too drunk to type out a smart reply. But you're way off here. Microsoft has made tremendous techonoligical advances with .NET over Java, with their development tools and their database software. They failings are really apparent, but it's too soon to say that they are a dead company with nothing new to sell. If you haven't kept up, their new offerings from VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 are enough to reconsider, and if you don't care, you're just not interested enough.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[willyhill]

Seems to me that whatever Microsoft introduces or announces is met with criticism and derision simply because people are predisposed to do that, especially around here.

I seem to remember C# and the .NET framework were met with criticism and derision eight years ago (I'm not a developer but I've followed the dev space for years because my job used to involve dealing with those technologies anyway). Not much criticism and derision now, is there?

More to the point, where exactly is all this criticism and derision coming from? Microsoft has a *huge* developer base that doesn't exactly hang around Slashdot and Digg. Are you sure all this negativity is not just the feedback loop many people around here are stuck in? I try to get my tech news from many places, with Slashdot being just one of them. The usual negative tends to temper the usual hyped positive of other venues.

As someone who runs data centers, I was very excited about Server 2008, which was criticized even before it was released here and elsewhere. And it was hyped by the Microsoft-friendly tech rags. In the end, I had to actually use it to make up my mind. If I went by what Slashdot or C|Net tell me about technology, I'd still be using an abacus.

You can use as many florid phrases as you like, but most people outside your own circle of friends view Microsoft as just another tech company from which to buy products (or in some cases avoid them). And hardly one that is dying (unless you're twitter, of course).

Re:That sound that you hear...

[BhaKi]

As for the rest of us, developer tools, language design, is one of the areas where Microsoft unquestionable excels.

Language design?? Wait. I don't seem to be able to recall when was the last time ms DEFINED a language PROPERLY so that someone could write a compiler for it. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[westlake]

That sound you hear is the sound of a company dieing...seriously
.

Firefox has a built-in spell checker. Seriously.

MS is the first U.S. industrial company in ten years to get a AAA credit rating from S&P and Moody's. It's a damn short list these days.

If your company's bonds are rated "below investment grade" - aka "junk" - and the odds are 7 in 10 that they are - then you are the one who is looking death in the face, not Microsoft.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Liquidrage]

I have never for the life of me seen first hand one job, company, organization, or anything, that has a job available or for a Ruby or Python coder. The job-finding sites barely have any. Like a few dozen to a few hundred, compared to 10's of 1000's usually for C# or Java.

Doesn't mean they suck. And actually I've worked a few places that use Sharepoint very well. It's a very nice tool when used for a simple purpose. A document and discussion site for a project.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. They posted profits this fiscal year second only to the oil companies. MS stock has fallen only slightly, even in this market. They've grown in profits substantially. Based on sales, Sharepoint is arguably one of the most popular software products ever offered to the business users. I think that perhaps "a rotting corpse on the sidewalk with a beggars cup held out" might not be the most accurate characterization.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[westlake]

Market share != quality.
.

Market share = survival.

Microsoft's bread & butter is the home and office workhorse.

The Windows PC that can run damn near every client-side app on the planet - including the marquee products of free and open source.

For the server room there is Exchange and SharePoint and...pretty much everything else you might need or want for a small to mid-sized business.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Johnny Loves Linux]

>Then there's Microsoft Research, which actually comes
>up with some great stuff, though most of it is not
>(yet) implementable on a commercial scale.

I first heard about Microsoft Research somewhere around Jan. 2008. A friend had informed me that some brilliant math guy, a winner of the Field's medal (Math equivalent to a Nobel Prize) had gone off to work at Microsoft Research. I was impressed and appalled at the same time. That a Field's medalist would go to work there gave Microsoft Research prestige. That a Field's medalist would go to work for Microsoft given the nasty history of Microsoft's business practices at the time was depressing. It was all about the money I guess.

Fast forward almost 11 years. 11 years ok. Let me say it one more time: 11 YEARS. What exactly has Microsoft Research produced in those 11 years that is truly noteworthy? Please don't tell me about some pie in the sky ideas. Just name 1 application that's actually used in the field that they have produced that's actually impressive. As a comparison, Bell Labs produced, I don't know, the integrated circuit, or say a bazillion Nobel prize winners.

Yes, I'm sure that there are Nobel prize winners working at Microsoft Research, but how many got their prizes *by* working there? Is it a farm to produce great new ideas, or is it a resting home for famous people to lend their names and prestige?

I'm ignorant here. Please help me to disspell any misconceptions I have about Microsoft Research. Show me that I'm not being fair to them, that I'm holding them to a higher standard than say Bell Labs, or IBM research, or Cray Research, or Xerox's Palo Alto research. Help me to understand.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Rennt]

Certainly, Microsoft isn't doing them selves any favors, not until windows 7 is released with actual improvements.

"The next Windows will actually be quite good - we promise" Ha! Microsoft has been saying this since 1985.

Do you REALLY believe the next version will be Windows Done Right?

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

XBox 360 a large success? Struggling to hang on to second place is a large success?

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't really possible before. Previously, they had to take what MS offered, or suffer. Now, they actually have a choice to fall back on if their bluff does not work. That security was not there before.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[X0563511]

dieing. dieing. Dieing. DIEING!

Are your eyes damaged yet? No?

DIEING! DIEING! DIEING!

How about now? Good! No more spelling trolls for you. Hard to check spelling when you can't see.

-----------

Did I make it clear how much of a fool you are making yourself look?

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Raenex]

Did I make it clear how much of a fool you are making yourself look?

No, try harder.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[afabbro]

I first heard about Microsoft Research somewhere around Jan. 2008.

[...]

Fast forward almost 11 years. 11 years ok. Let me say it one more time: 11 YEARS. What exactly has Microsoft Research produced in those 11 years that is truly noteworthy?

Well, I don't know. Unlike you, the rest of us can't skip forward to 2019.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[X0563511]

No. I'll play the part of a fool, and reply to a troll as above. But I will not become one completely and humor you further.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Blakey Rat]

What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision?

This is Slashdot. If MS announced that they're moving all their employees to a 25-hour work week with free massages and providing company Audis, they'd be met with criticism and derision. In short, "criticism and derision" of Microsoft means approximately jack shit on this site.

What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world?

I could respond to this, but why would I bother? You'd just criticize (and deride) whatever I said, even if it was a genuine improvement for the personal computing world.

The MS way of doing things is no longer the ONLY way to do things.

Was it ever? They've always had lots of competitors in the server space, and at least one competitor in the desktop space.

There are entire countries that have rejected MS products,

And there are entire countries that use virtually nothing but MS products. Guess which list is longer.

When entire countries and industries reject your products you have a serious problem.

I dunno, cigarette companies are still doing ok.

MS has not and is not addressing that problem. They seem to be blindly going down the same road that led to this situation without concern for how they will make money in the next decade.

What "solution" do you propose, exactly? Assume you're Steve Ballmer; what do you do next?

(That said, I frankly don't agree with the direction Ballmer's taking the company. But at the same time, you have to realize they've made huge gains in markets Microsoft was almost unheard of in just a few years ago, like video gaming. In any case, if things were really even slightly close to bad, people would be calling for Ballmer to resign, and nobody is.)

That is just my opinion,

Yup.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell their are still trolls that tout Vista as a failure even though it has 10 times the market share of OS.X and a 100 times the market share of desktop linux and makes them BILLIONS.

Market share != quality.

Quality != success

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Raenex]

You're doing an excellent job :)

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Lord Aurora]

But he's referring to the OP calling it the death of a company. Their success, as it stands now, isn't even remotely dependent on the quality of their products (which is actually not as bad as people make it out to be). They ARE making BILLIONS, and therefore they're not going down anytime soon.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[syousef]

World leaders they no longer are

If like Yoda you speak slashdot will call you wise, yeeees!

Re:That sound that you hear...

[nmb3000]

I first heard about Microsoft Research somewhere around Jan. 2008. [...] Fast forward almost 11 years. 11 years ok. Let me say it one more time: 11 YEARS. What exactly has Microsoft Research produced in those 11 years that is truly noteworthy?

A time machine?

Re:That sound that you hear...

[rdnetto]

And Linux.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[rdnetto]

Isn't that the idea? That it is limited to 4 directions instead of the complex 360 degrees of directions supported by the thumbsticks?
Oh, nad if you're going to type a lot of text (e.g. account creation) the best way to do it is to plug in a USB keyboard.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[sponga]

Loosing all my family photos?

Well than I just have to defrag what it spread out in between, thankfully I have auto-defrag on.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

2008 Rev (in millions):60,420.00
2007 Rev (in millions): 51,122.00

yep, definitely a rotting corpse with a beggars cup.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd contest the 360's place on that list. The failure rate has got to be hurting them, not to mention I'm pretty sure they sell the box itself at a loss and make it up on the games.

Fixed. Because that has been their strategy from the beginning.

And the XBox 360 has far outshined PS3. I won't go into technical details because I just don't care about them. Aside from Metal Gear and Gran Turismo, there isn't a single game coming to PS3 that wouldn't come to 360. Hell, even Tekkens are coming to 360. Any gamer can tell that 360 has all the same games and more than PS3.

Result? I don't know anyone who would have PS3 for gaming. One person bought it for bluray and we know how well that format has spread...

And to games? Halo3 has sold 8.1 million copies (statistic from January so should be a lot more now. Propably 10is million) alone. It broke all the records (the previous ones having been made by Halo2). And that is just the flagship when there are so many others. (And a new addition to Halo3 coming out soon)

I'm pretty sure that Microsoft wouldn't consider 360 a failure.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[rastoboy29]

lol...although I agree with you...we're talking about a rotting corpse in an Armani suit, and a Lamborghini.  They ain't dead, yet.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[MariusBoo]

Market share == success.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Alex Belits]

That's because those people aren't hired through dumb recruiting services. Just as well you won't see C programmers being hired, and most of code currently running on anything is written in it.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[ozphx]

Quality is irrelevant to whether the company is dying or not.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well here's the thing, pray microsoft doesnt die, then we're stuck with an even worse company, apple.

Apple practices what microsoft WISHES it could get away with. Which is total product lock-in

Also, on the corporate level, Microsoft has the upper hand over apple and linux. As long as they have that, they wont die any time soon. The alternative solutions arent very viable either.

There's openldap, but it leaves out windows clients (not so bad if you dont run windows, but there are apps out there that will only play nice on windows that are required in business)
There's the need for file replication and being able to get older copies of files, there arent many linux solutions to this problem, and the ones that do exist, are either not viable in enterprise or cost much much more than any microsoft solution, and usually have licensing that makes any crap that microsoft puts you through look like a better deal. (one license was you paid $35k for 100 users for a lifetime license, plus $1000 for every 20 users after that, YEARLY.)

Sadly, as much as I'd love to see them go, they wont because on their true market, the enterprise, they're still king, they could lose the home market, but retain the corporate market and still exist. Which is why I dont get why they dont embrace alternate platforms for their products, as it would give them an edge if they lose the home market.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Alex Belits]

MS is the first U.S. industrial company in ten years to get a AAA credit rating from S&P and Moody's. It's a damn short list these days.

"Industrial"? Really?

I see, this is by the same classification where McDonald's is a manufacturing company because it makes sandwiches.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[IceFreak2000]

How about the ECMA-334 C# Language Specification for starters...

Re:That sound that you hear...

[shutdown -p now]

Market share != quality.

Who spoke about quality? Market share == big bucks == a successful company. The GP was trolling about how Microsoft is failing. Whether Vista is crap or not is irrelevant here - if MS can make money on crap, then by all means, they are a very successful company.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[shutdown -p now]

Language design?? Wait. I don't seem to be able to recall when was the last time ms DEFINED a language PROPERLY so that someone could write a compiler for it. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Sure. Both C# and VB.NET have open language specs which are pretty easy to read and cover all the aspects (and if you find any ambiguity and report it, their language designers will treat it as a bug). C# one is standardized by ISO, and there are two Microsoft compilers available for it (the one in .NET, and the one from SSCLI/Rotor), and two independently developed third-party ones (Mono and Portable.NET) - not bad. VB.NET is not governed by any standard body, but even so, Mono also has a third-party implementation.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[mindstormpt]

I'll have to stick with the other replies and state that I can't predict what they'll be doing for the next 10 and a half years.

I can however show you 3 ideas, notable for different reasons:

- Singularity, for its managed approach to the OS core

- ClearType, not because it's a huge innovation but because it's really in use

- Photosynth, for the wow factor

They have a a few hundred publications, most of which are outside my research area and probably beyond my comprehension. Since they had more papers accepted to SIGGRAPH than anyone else, it being the most prestigious CG conference, I'd guess they're actually doing some real research on that field.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

However: Market Share == Surviving, not dying..

Re:That sound that you hear...

[gbjbaanb]

the latter is the only chance, the DoJ had the opportunity to break MS up and was persuaded it was a bad idea, so they went for the 'open your protocols' instead. (they should have done both).

But, with the credit crunch, recession (maybe depression) will make the lure of free software too good to pass down as IT budgets are slashed, MS may find their 'de-facto' platform status reduced to being a legacy thing, though I think they'll keep Windows on the desktop, but sell a lot less applications. You can see how they think of this by the massive marketing effort directed at .NET - gotta grab developers and lock them in to Windows-only development.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is the sound I predicted in 1995, and the other developers laughed at me. I said in 20 years "Microsoft" would be a genre of joke, not a company.

Looks like they're right on schedule. When 7 comes out and all the suckers who were forced to buy Vista jump ship, Microsoft will have done to itself what no competitor has managed to do to Microsoft.

Oh, and "Amiga is dead. Long live Amiga." :)

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

well yes the new products from ms where met with criticism and derision, but it's only because the reviewers are idiots. take a slightly deeper look at ms' tech like .net, visual studio 2008, sql server 2008, office 2007 and even vista, and you will see that in all of them there have been significant improvements that make the gap between ms' tools and open source tools even larger (with the advantage on ms' side). Sorry but a hacked together linux+java+eclipse+php+rails+whateverthefancypantscrapnow is just not competitive in quality of toolchain, time to market, maintainance cost and general convenience.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Liquidrage]

You surely must be joking. I mean, I've read a lot of stupid things, but acting as if some very simple languages are so elitist as to not appear on job sites takes the cake.

FYI, in my 12 years paying my bills by writing code I've never seen a job for Python or Ruby ever. Yes, some exist, but they are very rare compared to Java for example. C++ is all over those sites, and I've personally aware of jobs for C++.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Market share = survival.

what programming language do you use?

Re:That sound that you hear...

[Your.Master]

Yes. Yes it is.

Re:That sound that you hear...

[internerdj]

Correct and economically speaking it cannot be that way for intellectual property for a variety of reasons. The biggest factor being that quality delays time to market which means you lose market share which at extremes will kill a product's profitability. Also in regard to that is quality increases cost, are you going to pay for a crashproof OS if it costs more than your car? If so, how about the rest of the world?

I wonder

[Yvan256]

what Bond would say about this.

The Alphabet

[flydude18]

They're going about this all wrong. The correct procedure is:

1. Invent and patent "A"
2. Claim prior art and start suing
3. This step you know unless you're new here.

Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[SL Baur]

From TFA:

By âoecross platformâ, Microsoft means, âoecross platform as long the other platform authors write a backend for the code, and the SQL database MUST be hosted on MS SQL, a proprietary Microsoft Windows serviceâ.

Let me clarify that statement. By cross platform we mean that this is portable to both Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Vista.

Link to Register Article

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA was low on info and high on bias. The Register article is a little better. I couldn't quickly find any Microsoft release on the matter:

The Register

Re:Link to Register Article

[shutdown -p now]

This LTU discussion has a bit more info, including an explanatory comment by one of the language designers.

Actually, there already is a language called M

[kcokane]

The Mumps Language was re-designated as the M language a number of
years ago. While Mumps isn't as widely used as some others, perhaps
the people in Redmond should do a literature search before they
name things.

see:

http://math-cs.cns.uni.edu/~okane/mumps.html
http://www.cs.uni.edu/~okane/

Re:Actually, there already is a language called M

[kcokane]

see also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

Re:Actually, there already is a language called M

[bill_mcgonigle]

Not being on my regular computer, I'm seeing ads today and the delicious irony is that Intersystems is paying for Cache' ads on this story (Cache' is the dominant commercial implementation of M used in about half the hospitals in the US).

I had heard Microsoft was going after the healthcare market but I didn't realize they were going to do it by exhausting Intersystems' ad budget on irrelevant stories.

Also not being on my regular computer I have no idea the keybinding for an accented e....

Re:Actually, there already is a language called M

[cerberusss]

Just some two years ago, I encountered Mumps while building a connector that pumped medical information from a GP his system into a message server. And yes, the GP his system was entirely written in Mumps.

Aaaaah, fond memories....

That crazy stuff doesn't look like anything you've ever seen before.

Re:Actually, there already is a language called M

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. The folks in Cupertino could take the same advice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone#Patents.2C_copyrights.2C_and_trademarks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v._Apple_Computer

Re:Actually, there already is a language called M

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. My CV is going to be a bit fucked up when I have 12 years of M experience yet the new M has only just come out.

Re:Actually, there already is a language called M

[ssafarik]

And the Matlab language is called M.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

So, will the next VS include F# and "M"?

Promal/V2

[SL Baur]

So apparently Microsoft tried to make their own "D" long ago and failed.

I guess so and I admit to being confused a bit by that part too.

Anyone care to comment on the phenomenal success of Promal (which was a similar "product")?

"Now you do not need any other confusing computer language, now, you have Promal!" (Quote from an IBM PC trade rag in the early 1980s). Though even that was more cross platform than this "M" is supposed to be - it ran on 6502s too.

Nowhere for Big Bird to Go Now

[PingPongBoy]

So, M is for Microsoft.

But what can they possibly do after M? The language I, and then back to C, followed by R?

Re:Nowhere for Big Bird to Go Now

[Yvan256]

Nope. The next languages will be "E", "R", "D" and back to "E" again.

Re:Nowhere for Big Bird to Go Now

[Bill Dog]

So, M is for Microsoft.

No, M is for Modeling.

And Google is your friend:
Microsoft details Oslo's modeling language, tools
Microsoft To Release Oslo Modeling Software Preview

Re:Nowhere for Big Bird to Go Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows running the language
M, who some say is similar to the
D programming language

MUMPS ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me there has been an M language for years, a descendant of MUMPS.

So what the heck is Microsoft trying to do here?

TFA wasn't a FA

[Bill Dog]

Thanks for the link, that was a much better article. But most Slashdotters will prefer the less informative, more biased original chosen for featuring here. In fact, you can find way better articles just googling "programming language m oslo quadrant" than the blog post featured here. But his blog does have a neat look.

Re:TFA wasn't a FA

[Anthony_Cargile]

if you are familiar with macs (despite thecoffeedesk staff being huge FOSS users), click command-space on the keyboard for an easter egg they hid in the website a while back. Doesn't do anything yet AFAIK, but still kinda cool.

offtopic -- slashdot tags

[larry bagina]

currently, this story is tagged as both "tech" and "!tech". Seriously, wtf? Isn't the !tag supposed to cancel out the original tag?

Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken

[martinde]

And it's been taken since 1984.

Re:Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also an ANSI standard for another language named M a.k.a. MUMPS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

Re:Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken

[Anonymous Coward]

that's not "M", that's "Matlab".

you've got a five-letter difference there.

Re:Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just a codename!!!

Re:Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken

[soldoutactivist]

Microsoft has a language named "M".
Digital Mars has a language named "M".
Microsoft has a language named "M".
Digital Mars has a language named "M".
Microsoft has a language named "M".
Digital Mars has a language named "M".

Damn, doublethink hurts.

Re:Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's been taken since 1984.

Well, "XP" was taken too.

Oh, Joy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wonderful.

ANOTHER language for which it is well-neigh impossible to do internet searches on.

Hey, why don't you add a few non-ASCII Unicode characters while you're at it? Bonus points if they don't have printable representations.

Re:Oh, Joy.

[J. Random Software]

Great. Now I want to fork Whitespace and create a ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE compiler.

Lockin's - Microsoft crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you really expect Microsoft to support anything but Microsoft, they're all about lockin's thats it, that's the reason I wont touch Microsoft crap

"which only runs on Windows"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for those too lazy to install WINE, that is.

Re:"which only runs on Windows"

[Malevolyn]

But do you really want to run SQL Server in WINE?

Re:"which only runs on Windows"

[toby]

Do you really want to run a Microsoft product, period? Come on, it's 2008, not 1978.

Re:"which only runs on Windows"

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't run in WINE anyway.

Lock-ins

[primefalcon]

Seriously whoever thought Microsoft would support anyone non-Microsoft. Microsoft supports Microsoft, thats always been their way. That's one reason I'll never touch Microsoft software, and I'd also advise anyone else from touching the rubbish

M ?

[giorgist]

Why not "F", that is what we gave Vista

G

Re:M ?

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe its M for 'massive fail'...?

Re:M ?

[cdrudge]

I understand your attempt at humor, but they already have a "F" language, F#.

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

...but we're still not sure about Vista.

Traf-0-Data

[iminplaya]

Whose stuff are they cloning this time?

TFA sucks and here's 3 serious reasons why

[johanatan]

In a software-centric world where we already have many, many languages to program in, from scripting to bytecode compiled languages, to frameworks on top of languages and embedded languages, now Redmond wants to bring ANOTHER language to the table, titled âMâ(TM) (for Microsoft?

What about machine-code compiled languages?

Microsoft has not said much other than that about the new language, but it will presumably be a compiled .net language (goodbye true native code), and from what Microsoft said, M is to strive to be cross-platformâ¦. with a catch.

I hardly think that M will be the end of 'true native code'. C# has already taken over 50% of Windows development and there are many other .NET languages to choose from (IronRuby, IronPython, F#, C++/CLI, VB.NET, to name a few). And besides that, M does not even compete with 'native code'!! It serves an entirely different purpose!!

The mono project does a descent job of allowing .net code to run on non-windows platforms, and if M adheres to the same standards then after a given time M-written applications will be penguin-friendly as well if Microsoft can get around the MS SQL dependency.

It's 'decent' not descent (though maybe that's a Freudian slip?!?). And, Microsoft certainly *can* get around the MS SQL dependency. [Or rather they *should* be able to get around problems they've code into their own platform!!]. But, this isn't a question of capability, it is (or should be) a question of will.

I think the better question is whether anybody else can get around it (certainly so) and will care to (probably not). M sounds rather lame.

Re:TFA sucks and here's 3 serious reasons why

[Anonymous Coward]

You fail to realize that the article actually favors machine code compiled languages over bytecode and scripting languages, for one, and they aren't saying 'M' is to replace native code, rather it will just make native coders more scarce because of the flurry of non-native languages around, e.g. all the scripting languages and .net bullshit (nothing but a cheap solution to DLL hell and to downplay the usage of undocumented features so the actual platform is easier to develop/fix). But I don't really see M take off like C# did, anyways unless the OOP people get orgasmic about modeling.

Re:TFA sucks and here's 3 serious reasons why

[johanatan]

Well, if it is possible for 'articles' to favor anything at all, they should say so. The quotes I pulled were pretty clear. If the author intended to say something else, then he should have. That's actually one of the reasons I thought the quality of the article was pretty low.

Re:TFA sucks and here's 3 serious reasons why

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't think it was one of their better posts either, but some of their past articles have been pretty high quality, except the ones by ert3 or whatever his/her name is. Nice design too, just a little too fanboyish for me.

M burger

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why I this (http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/?f=y ) popped into my head when I heard the name M

Their technology may be stagnant

[nurb432]

But their revenue is still increasing, and they still have a stranglehold on the majority of the market.

A Lot of good stuff coming from Microsoft...

[NullProg]

Too bad my version of WGA thinks I'm a thief.

I'll code programs for Linux/Mac/Web in an open language thankyou very much.

Enjoy.

Re:A Lot of good stuff coming from Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is funny, because I am a thief by their definition, and my WGA is humming along quietly in it's own rosey little world.

I would say it certainly does it's job well! No sarcasm there...

At least it doesn't start with "X"

[DrVomact]

I didn't RTFM, as I can't bring myself to care about a new programming language proposed by Microsoft, but I am buoyed by the fact that the new language begins with something other than the letter "X". In fact, I feel that this letter has been so overused that it should be officially deprecated by the W3C. Obviously, we have to "grandfather" existing X foo; renaming "XML" to "EKSML", "XSLT" to "EKSLT", and so forth would merely result in a much more valuable resource—the letter E—becoming raddled through overuse. But, read my lips, No more new Ekses!

This message has been brought to you by the letters [A-WYZa-wyz], who think we could get along just fine with a 25 letter alphabet.

Re:At least it doesn't start with "X"

[Forbman]

...but then some people would pronounce them as "eee-kay-ess-em-el", "eee-kay-ess-el-tee", etc. Really, they should be pronounced with the ancient greek pronunciation of X: "k". "km-el", "kslt", just like the correct pronunciation of "TeX"...

M has been an ISO and ANSI-standard language

[dpbsmith]

...for decades. It has been an official alternate name for MUMPS, ANSI standard X11.1, since 1995, while MUMPS itself goes back to 1966. It has been available for virtually every important platform, including but certainly not limited to Windows, for decades. I believe it is still the programming language used by the Veterans Administration. It is the foundation of Intersystem's corporations Cache development platform, and a (much-modified) form of it underlies the product line of Medical Information Technology (Meditech).

Meditech's revenues are something in the range of $350 million, Intersystems' were about $140 million in 2003. That ain't Microsoft but that ain't hay, either.

Regardless of what the legal rights and wrongs might be--I'm not sure whether the ISO and ANSI standards are still current--it just arrogant and tacky and lame for Microsoft to have appropriated this well-established, decades-old language name, particularly when they're so pugnacious about defending their own rights to an ordinary English plural noun.

Re:M has been an ISO and ANSI-standard language

[ClosedSource]

I think anyone who wants to establish exclusive rights to a name with only one letter shouldn't be surprised when someone else uses it. In any case, MUMPS couldn't be confused with any language created in the last 20 years.

Re:M has been an ISO and ANSI-standard language

[Repton]

Could be a boost for them!

[Manager] Microsoft just brought out a new language. It sounds great; this tech rag raves about it! Hire some M developers!

[HR] M dev, 3-5 years exp pref, $70k

[MUMPS developer] Yo, 6 years with M, worked at CompanyX on ProjectFoo, CompanyY on ProjectBar

[HR] Hired!

[Manager] This is our product. You're the new M team. Start coding!

Re:M has been an ISO and ANSI-standard language

[badkarmadayaccount]

The X11 protocol is ANSI standard? *ducks*

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[Sentry21]

And not just Windows XP Vista - all three versions of XP and all eight versions of Windows Vista! Truly the broadest, deepest multiplatform support of any programming language available!

Is that a fact?

[fullgandoo]

"is the sound of a company dieing . . ."

in your wet dream, most likely.

"in the last 5 years"

.NET has met with great success, C# along with VS is perhaps the most productive development environment, MS Office has a revamped interface that people really like once they've used it for a while, Vista is steadily gaining acceptance, IE7 has a better interface IMHO and is faster than Firefox or Safari, IIS has greatly eroded the dominance of Apache . . .

And Windows is on a majority of smartphones around the world.

World leaders they still are, no country has actually "rejected" MS. Their market value is still intact.

The only rotting corpse on the sidewalk is perhaps "Linux on the desktop".

But alternate views are not appreciated on Slashdot and I expect to be immediately modded down sub-zero.

Re:Is that a fact?

[Tablizer]

C# along with VS is perhaps the most productive development environment,

I partially agree, but its largely because they've automated lots of typical software idioms to click-and-drag and wizards. However, if you want to alter it beyond The Official Way, those tools drag you through a screwy swamp. It's homogenized Walmart-ware that doesn't like you to go off the beaten path. That's both a good thing and a bad thing.
       

Re:Is that a fact?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista is steadily gaining acceptance

The Dan Quayle of operating systems.

Re:Is that a fact?

[vally_manea]

ok probably MS is not dying but I do think you are trolling here: .NET and C# probably you are right,

MS Ofiice not so much, mostly bad press for the ribbon thing

Vista, could you say how is gaining acceptance, again MS allowed OEMs to preinstall XP

IE7, you must be joking, the most stupid interface I have ever seen and speed - not so much

Windows CE has recently been surpassed in market share by RIM - which is probably right because it mostly sucks as a phone OS anyways

Re:Is that a fact?

[wootest]

It's not perfect, but right now I'm getting more stuff done in C# than I do in any other language, surpassing Ruby and Objective-C, my other two preferred languages.

It may be that the platform is chock full of wizards, bad decisions and a penchant for not backporting architectural improvements because of the backward compatibility bogeyman. But I'm getting lots of work done *despite* the wizardry, and I like to go "beyond the official way".

In the end, maybe stuff like LINQ makes it all worthwhile, but the baseline is higher than many people seem to assert. I seem to be relatively alone in this on sites like Slashdot, but C# is a better, more coherent language than Java in my view, because it's designed by a few people (including Anders Hejlsberg, Denmark's way of making up for Bjarne Stroustrup) instead of largely by committee.

Re:Is that a fact?

[Tarwn]

It's homogenized Walmart-ware that doesn't like you to go off the beaten path. That's both a good thing and a bad thing.

That's actually been one of my main problems with MS tech all along. Every application, language, technology, whatever that I have used has had this magic bar. Doing anything under the magic bar is simpler, on average, then it's competitors. However once you try to exceed the magic bar you end up in a position likened to being kicked in the head, repeatedly, by steel toe boots. The first 99% of what you were working on took a few days, the one function/feature that isn't working the way your expecting it to will actually end up costing you twice as long to get past.

Oh, and not using the click-and-drag method will actually raise the bar a bit. I've found that if you forgo those methods early you will manage to get a lot farther before the tool tries to force bad practices on you or leaves you ni a dead end trying to figure out how to make a function work the way it should.

Offtopic: When did the quote button start spitting out extra, incorrect HTML as part of it's duties?

Re:Is that a fact?

[entgod]

And Windows is on a majority of smartphones around the world.

Excuse me, which world might this be? Nokia is still the largest smartphone vendor in this one and none of its phones use windows. According to wikipedia, the windows market share on smartphones is only 12%.

And "Linux on the desktop" is far from a rotting corpse. Relative to windows and osx, it's not big but in pure numbers the amount of users is growing all the time.

Re:Is that a fact?

[Bazouel]

Yes, I hope that you are modded down because you are simply trolling. IIS eroding Apache? Let's get real! IE7 better than Firefox/Safari? And Opera too? Whoa. I won't bother arguing with other stuff you said, you are the one having a wet dream my friend. Time to wake up and wash your sheets.

Re:Is that a fact?

[Tablizer]

but C# is a better, more coherent language than Java in my view

That isn't saying much ;-) Java was designed mostly for tool builders, not front-line developers.
       

Re:Is that a fact?

[wootest]

but C# is a better, more coherent language than Java in my view

That isn't saying much ;-) Java was designed mostly for tool builders, not front-line developers.

Admittedly it might not be saying much, but I reject the notion that Java was designed for "tool builders". I don't see any evidence for this at all, and my experience with Java has been that ordinary things are tedious and tricky things are a nightmare; and by nightmare I mean tricky, tedious and verbose to the effect that the language stands in your way and forces you to write more lines of code or constructs that are just weird. Although it depends on what you mean by tools, they are full of tricky things.

If indeed something has been said officially on what Java's been designed for, I'd be interested in reading that. It's possible I just didn't hear it over the Sun "write once run anywhere" party line.

New spy weapons

[gmuslera]

My name is Bond, Crash Bond, with licence to kill you... and i will use for that this brand new blue screen that M gave me.

@summary: No Shit.

[toby]

When will everybody figure out that Microsoft has one strategy, one plan, one idea only: LOCK-IN. That's the Alpha and Omega, folks.

Gates' 3rd grade report card: "Does not play nicely with other children. Claimed to have earned $98,126 during the school year by 'monetizing' student notebooks but we decided not to investigate after William installed a new refrigerator and jacuzzi in the staff room. We hope your son will be with us for Grade 4!"

+1 Exactly

[toby]

thanks.

Re:+1 Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

All you've done on this article is write pithy, contentless one-line responses - save for one post where you triumphantly announce something that everyone has known for about 20 years. Maybe you think that your 3-digit UID conveys more than making a point does, or that everyone with intelligent thinks the way you do anyway.

Whatever your reason, why not try and express your argument in words rather than groupthink-enabled microposts?

Re:+1 Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a whiner.

touche

[toby]

And that's why they are irrelevant. Totally.

The grand plan

[synthespian]

M - the M language
I - Iron Python for .NET
C - C#
R - R# coming soon...
O - O# coming soon...
S - Silverlight
O - O# see above
F - F# right here, right now
T - T# real soon now...

Re:The grand plan

[BotnetZombie]

Don't need O#, O is already on the scene - Oslo

Dial

[Das Auge]

Program "M" for moron.

M... as in Fritz Lang's movie

[McNihil]

M as in murder... M as them being the mob or them feeling they are hit by mob mentality?

really... how many nails do Microsoft actually need in their stinkin' coffin?

Re:M... as in Fritz Lang's movie

[X0563511]

You missed 'mug' - I actually think that would make an interesting name for a language (or a project at least...).

Commence Project Mug!

Re:M... as in Fritz Lang's movie

[Black Art]

They already named a version of Windows after a TV series on serial killers ("Millennium"), why not a language based on a serial killer. How many ways does it have of killing child processes?

They did

[Weaselmancer]

Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

You can download them here.

Re:They did

[Anonymous Coward]

If Java is ".Net, but cleaned up," then Microsoft's shit must be completely fucked.

Re:They did

[atraintocry]

Who said it wasn't?

Re:They did

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, cleaning them up sure slowed them down!

Re:They did

[hcgpragt]

Maybe this would help?

Mumps? WTF!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mumps? I seem to remember hearing about that before ...

The name is already taken

[mysticgoat]

The M language was standardized under that name around 1993 - 1995. Prior to that the language was known as MUMPS, which is an acronym for Massachusetts (General Hospital) Utility Muli Programming System, and goes back to 1967. Which makes it older than Unix. It is a language designed primarily for hospital related work. The US Veterans Administration was an early adopter, and has done a lot to promote MUMPS/M development.

I don't know what it is with Microsoft, but they keep stealing names that have been in extensive use in the Veterans Administration. Vista is the name of the interface that the VA put on its integrated software around 1995: it includes a Delphi front end that was first implemented on WinNT before even Win98 saw the light of day. The VA Vista was the first successful attempt to integrate all the various information systems a modern healthcare system needs, and by several measures it remains the most successful one. I was disappointed when Microsoft decided to call its newest OS by that name since I think that VA Vista deserves recognition on its merits, not obfuscation by what has turned out to be one biggest software duds ever.

I am really disappointed that Microsoft chose to call their product the M Language. Can they not google a simple name collision check?

Oh wait,,, I suppose they have to rely on their own search engine, huh?

Domain modeling environments

[Stan Vassilev]

Oslo and M appear to be taking a page out of the research Charles Simonyi has been doing at Microsoft, before leading to develop and advanced form of the technology at his own company Intentional Software.

The basic idea here is that any bigger project can be made more maintainable and flexible at the same time, if the deveopers create a domain specific model for the given task, and let the end-users (for example accountants, drug store chemists, biologists, business owners) model the concrete behaviour of the application by manipulating that simplified and specialized language, often visually, the way an UML diagram or a spreadsheet works.

Unfortunately the linked article offers a little more than the usual "LOL, Microsoft sucks!" rant, which is somewhat expected from a blog where the iMac keyboard and iPhone are used as "design elements".

Anyway, I'd say this should be watched as it can mean model languages will finally enter mainstream, something that's been years in the making.

Related articles:

http://blogs.msdn.com/wenlong/archive/2008/09/07/net-4-0-wf-wcf-and-oslo.aspx

"By mentioning model-driven programming, you will see a general modeling platform to be unveiled at PDC: Oslo. As Doug said, Oslo contains three simple things: a visual tool helps building models, a new textual DSL language helps defining models, and a relational repository that stores models. XAML represented workflows and services are special models in this domain. Check for more details in the postings from Doug and Don."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1430

"'Schemas in the repository can be defined using this language, but they dont have to be,' Chappell said. Developers can still use any other tools with which theyd be comfortable to create schemas instead. Because the new language will generate SQL, and the repository can be accessed using standard SQL, no special languages will be required."

Re:Domain modeling environments

[Anonymous Coward]

From the links it sounds like the same thing that's been proposed since the dawn of COBOL. A programing language that can be written by domain experts rather than programmers. I think enough time has elapsed since COBOL's creation to provide some empirical evidence that goal is not attainable.

Re:Domain modeling environments

[dkf]

The basic idea here is that any bigger project can be made more maintainable and flexible at the same time, if the deveopers create a domain specific model for the given task, and let the end-users (for example accountants, drug store chemists, biologists, business owners) model the concrete behaviour of the application by manipulating that simplified and specialized language, often visually, the way an UML diagram or a spreadsheet works.

They're probably doomed. It's very very hard to make a visual programming language not suck (the closest I ever got involved having large gobs of text inside the visual blobs, which isn't very visual!) because handling scaling of complexity is hard visually.

But that's only the minor reason for trouble. The major reason is that most non-programmers can't program at all in anything because they can't think systematically enough. It seems that relatively few people can, though I don't know whether it is an inborn talent or a learnable skill. Either way, for most of the population computers are magic miracle machines and programmers the priests/wizards. And they're mostly happy with this (and they'd be happier still if programmers were better at working out what to do for them, but that's a whole 'nother story).

Re:Domain modeling environments

[Stan Vassilev]

They're probably doomed. It's very very hard to make a visual programming language not suck (the closest I ever got involved having large gobs of text inside the visual blobs, which isn't very visual!) because handling scaling of complexity is hard visually.

You're missing the point: the visual components isn't a generic purpose programming language. It's a domain specific language tailored to a specific task.

Whether it's visual, or it's just a bunch of XML markup is up the implementers. Sometimes some paradigms are much simpler to present visually, and then visual editing can be used.

Think of it that way: the DSL and the models they represent don't explain *how* things work, but *what* the major agents in a system are there and their interaction.

They are evolved metadata, an evolved "settings" file, that lets you set more things in the system than normally you're able to.

Re:Domain modeling environments

[gnud]

As Doug said, Oslo contains three simple things: a visual tool helps building models, a new textual DSL language helps defining models, and a relational repository that stores models.

I live in Oslo, and I've never seen or heard of either of these :o

Re:Domain modeling environments

[dkf]

You're missing the point: the visual components isn't a generic purpose programming language. It's a domain specific language tailored to a specific task.

Whether it's visual, or it's just a bunch of XML markup is up the implementers. Sometimes some paradigms are much simpler to present visually, and then visual editing can be used.

You underestimate the degree to which the syntactic idioms constrain things. It takes a lot of work to create a visual programming language's infrastructure, most of which is spent increasing the set of supported idioms. ("What does it mean if A overlaps B in one corner?" and stuff like that.) My experience with real users (yes, I wrote a domain-specific visual programming language) indicates that they tend to want a very large set of idioms. It's a lot of work, and runs the real risk of having the users turn round at the end and go back to textual forms. Don't diss textual DSLs; they work well. (I think this may be because there's only a few basic syntactic classes in language, and you can get a long long way with just two - verbs and nouns.)

My point is that, while it might be possible to beat the linguistic model for DSLs, it's very hard to do so with graphical models, and the effort is probably better spent elsewhere to be honest.

Think of it that way: the DSL and the models they represent don't explain *how* things work, but *what* the major agents in a system are there and their interaction.

They are evolved metadata, an evolved "settings" file, that lets you set more things in the system than normally you're able to.

I've been getting interested in ontological descriptions of systems recently, as you get all sorts of nice reasoning over the metadata "for free" (or rather someone else has done the work for you). I've not got to the bottom of that rabbit hole yet though, so judgement is reserved (except to note that it will be useful for at least one domain of interest: datacenter management).

BTW, if you're doing how things interact them you're (at a higher level of abstraction) doing how things work. That's an inescapable truth.

This just in..

[Anonymous Coward]

When questioned on what new, essential features the then-unnamed language was to bring to the table, the lead engineer replied with a phrase similar to the following..

"Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

And thus, the 'M' programming language was born.

Genius

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft did something I disapprove of --> They are dying

Logic is hard. Let's go shopping!

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[darkpixel2k]

And not just Windows XP Vista - all three versions of XP and all eight versions of Windows Vista! Truly the broadest, deepest multiplatform support of any programming language available!

You're forgetting the x86 versions and 64-bit versions...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[Kooty-Sentinel]

HEY. Don't leave IA64 out :(

Is this the same already existing "M" language?

[rfc1394]

Is Microsoft going to implement MUMPS, s database-driven programming language which was renamed to M to avoid using the trademark from Mass General Hospital from which MUMPS was originated, or in the alternative is this yet another case of Microsoft co-opting a name that was already in use by someone else and figuring, if they can't get away with it, they can buy their way (or maybe not even have to buy, as has been noted in this thread) out of it, like when they used the name "Internet Explorer" for their web browser, only to end up having to buy the name from a company that was previously using it for another purpose?

I suspect the latter.

Correct name

[Dan East]

The correct name is D+=9, or alternatively, D|=9, which is a rather nice coincidence for those of us that care about such things.

Re:Not a problem, Mr. D (ipshit)-

[aqk]

Golly, can someone tell me what "C" is? Any good articles on it?

From postings here, I understand it is NOT the offspring of some large monopolistic evil empire like M$, thank goodness!
Please re-assure me.
And while we're at it, lets have a few words on "B"....

.

DRBL

[symbolset]

Microsoft's home server was an interesting little blit.

Instead I set up at home a DRBL server with the LTSP option. It was more work, but it has some advantages:

• My files aren't corrupted
• my server's not vulnerable to any known virus
• good backup software is included
• Every PC can network boot to a server desktop. We often have the family kids over, and this is more handy than standing over them making sure they're not downloading malware to an XP PC.
• The net cost was some of my time. Since I enjoyed it, and thus avoided some entertainment expense, I saved twice.

But about their language. Yeah, programming languages that need to be tied to some proprietary service or product have so cleanly missed the point you have to wonder why they bothered. If you're retarded enough to buy into this plan, can you even write useful code accidently? I doubt it.

Re:DRBL

[mindstormpt]

I'm not saying that it's the best solution, but setting up a DBRL is beyond most home users knowledge. WHS is a turn-key solution, both sold in box and pre-installed in a computer, and as far as I can tell is easily used by someone who already uses windows. That's the improvement.

I'm with you on the language though, I don't see a need or a will to use it.

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[Anthony_Cargile]

AKA the itanic?

I can't wait til they appropriate Q...

[brennz]

Then the face of Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn or John de Lancie could go along with their marketing campaign!

Musically lame

[SEWilco]

So they've gone from C-sharp/D-flat to just humming? Well, the learning curve is flatter.

everyone

[chris.evans]

thinks they have the best solution, where they should be improving the design aspects of existing languages. Glut of tools in the field.

M is ...

[Alsee]

C++++++++++++++++++++

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Filter error: Your comment looks too much like ascii art.

-

Re:M is ...

[Tired and Emotional]

I don't follow that.

The language after C is P. The language after P is L. So M would only be C++++++. If indeed M is the next letter in the sequence starting BCPL.

Re:M is ...

[Alsee]

Wrong sequence, chuckle.

char language='C';
language++++++++++++++++++++;
language=='M'

-

Update your resume!

[MavEtJu]

It's time to update my resume with ceil(4 * rand()) years of experience with the M programming language!

Fail

[Alex Belits]

their upcoming TMG server

Upcoming product is making them billions already?

Looks like Microsoft hires retarded astroturfers now.

Mod parent up...

[argent]

Does it count as a troll if it's true?

Why Microsoft sucks...

[mlwmohawk]

This is not a troll, but an observation and opinion.

Microsoft, as a company, is in a perfect position, as many companies before, to "contribute" to the industry. Maybe a new language would be a good thing, maybe not, but the fact is it is being developed and people will be "evangelized" into trying to use it.

There is an old saying, "A rising tide lifts all boats." If it is a good language, why not make it open source? Why not develop it for everyone?

This is where Microsoft *always* tries for the exclusion. Always tries for hook. Never truly contributes to its industry. The Microsoft "evangelists" (an actual title) try to convert you and keep you. They even use fear of "open source" as a tactic.

With presidential politics in the air, maybe the analogy is forced because of information overload. By its like McCain's campaign. McCain has no substantive message that can inspire an impression that he's the guy who can really "help." So what does he do? He uses the Bush campaign machine that whips up the crowds with fear and hate. Dividing the country when we really really need to working together.

The software industry needs to come together. There are too many duplicative API sets. Too many differences for differences sake. Too much man power and expense wasted on porting.

Re:Why Microsoft sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, corporate america. Where everyone plays fair? Right? Right? Welcome to the real world kid.

Re:Why Microsoft sucks...

[mlwmohawk]

Yeah, corporate america. Where everyone plays fair? Right? Right? Welcome to the real world kid.

I'd hardly call myself a kid, pushing half a century.

Second, industries pushing standards and competing on features and products are the hallmarks of good business. Just think of all the industries built on standards. Constructions and materials, plumbing, electronics, HVAC, etc. A home owner can go to a hardware store and buy a standard drain fitting, sink, stove, dishwasher, cabinet, etc. Do they have to worry about which company produced the plumbing? No, the threads and fittings are ALL standard.

Software needs "good business" practices. Microsoft and its proprietary crap is inhibiting software and keeping the industry at an immature state.

Re:Why Microsoft sucks...

[QuietObserver]

Well said. And nice that you managed it without bringing in an automotive example into the mix.

As for your McCain comment in the original post. I agree as far as McCain alone is concerned, but I'd argue that there are basically the same major problems with the Obama campaign as well; his seems to create the illusion he can help with no substantive backing, and does just as little to unite the country.

Joe Biden hasn't helped any, with his comments like when he said President Franklin Roosevelt got on TV after the 1929 stock market crash, or his accusations during the vice presidential debates claiming deregulation caused our current financial crisis (congress and the Federal Reserve caused the problem, despite what wall street analysts claim).

I'd prefer a candidate whose message is one of genuine hope, not just change for the sake of change.

Sorry about the off topic post.

Oslo is suddenly a prominent term

[amn108]

The linked content mentions that this new language is "part of Microsofts new Oslo development strategy...". I guess Microsoft is up to its typical chameleon practices, of course it is absolutely coincidental and natural that after most of Norways relevant figures boicotted ISOs OOXML standard approval decision process, after numerous investigations were launched to bring up irregularities and peculiarities related to the whole voting and all, yes, it is natural that Microsoft decided to host its Tech.NET and Dev.NET (or whatever it is called) in Oslo. Doesn't take a wizard to figure out what is where and why. They feel now they have to undo all the damage they do by walking over dead bodies everywhere.

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

[MMC Monster]

just remember that XP support is deprecated. If this is an issue for you, just upgrade all your systems to Vista.

Then there's Microsoft Research

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! That reminds me of my earliest days using Linux. I had distro X installed and was trying to set up the sound. I searched for a file to cat to the device and found something like "microsoftresearch.au" buried deep in the file system. I catted it to the sound device and it was Curly saying "I tried to think but nothing happened."

I had found a home.

its just another tool.

[Anonymous Coward]

ultimately, microsoft will create more work for everyone with whatever they design and force on the market. It doesnt have to be perceived so negatively. peace.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Single-letter language names are bad

[ari_j]

I just wish that new languages would get better names. It's hard enough to Google for C or C++ information because of their names, and now Microsoft is coming up with another language that can't be Googled.

Feeding the trolls

[hcgpragt]

What's slow here is your perception. I guess you should read up on the subject...

Here is a link from microsoft network

currently performance is basically leap-frogging between j2ee and dotnet currently.
A choice cannot be made based on performance only

Dial M for

[ksd1337]

Microsoft!

M is for muirder.

[mrmeval]

srsly

Re:M is for muirder.

[oolleq]

I'm just glad to see Fritz Lang finally getting the credit he deserves for coming up with Microsoft's original business plan.

That was the most incoherent article ever

[sentientbrendan]

Seriously, what was that article even about? The title says "Microsoftâ(TM)s new âMâ(TM) programming language", but after reading the article I still have zero idea what the M programming language is for.

I mean... maybe if you're explaining a programming language a few code samples would be good so people know what the fuck you are talking about?

IQ Test

[evil_arrival_of_good]

Only works with MS SQL Server? We can safely dismiss any group of humans that consider this language.

D came from Digital Mars

[JonSimons]

The submitter is a fucking dumbass. D came from Digital Mars, not Microsoft.

Wait I know this

[teslatug]

Their new language is Mumps :) I'm sure those who know what M is are shuddering.

The original M language - what's old is new ?

[SixDimensionalArray]

It may be an older, somewhat forgotten language (outside of the Veteran's Administration in the US), but lest we forget the ORIGINAL M programming language - MUMPS!?!?!

Sure, they aren't the same - but MUMPS was a very powerful language in it's time and it will be interesting to see if what is old becomes new again!

SixDimensionalArray

Re:The original M language - what's old is new ?

[Mumpsman]

MUMPS is far from forgotten. It's still in use as the core of Intersystems Cache, which powers a lot of the major Healthcare Information Systems (GE Centricity, EPIC, Sunquest Lab). Also, the VA implememntation is called "VistA" and has been for years, so this isn't the first time that Gates & Co have gone to the MUMPS well and co opted a name for themselves.

Sybase and MS SQL Server Compatibility

[Not The Real Me]

"...the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows..."

At one time Sybase and SQL Server used to be compatible. I would use MS SQL Server ODBC drivers to connect to Sybase running on *nix systems. I would also use the open source TDS software from http://www.freetds.org/ software to allow *nix machines to pull data from SQL Server running on Windows machines. Granted MS and Sybase seem to have forked the TDS protocol which both databases use.

Let me guess.....

[BigBadBus]

The language called "Q" will have all the gadgets? (Hint: think James Bond)

Just like Microsoft to steal stuff...

[SillySlashdotName]

Google "M Programming Language" and the FIRST entry returned states that M is a programming language created in the 1960s. How is this "Microsoft's New Programming Language"?

On this computer I have the following sites bookmarked - the M Language Reference Manual, M[UMPS] by Example, M Info Source, and BOFH (that last one has nothing to do with M, but it is one of my favorites...) all of which have been on my computer for more than 5 years.

I say it is like Microsoft to steal stuff, because when Vista was being touted as the next big OS, there ALREADY was an application used by the Veterans Administration (written in M, by the way) named Vista. Not just an app, but it could be an OS as well when run on a MUMPS box - you just don't see many MUMPS boxes these days.... I posted on the topic at the time, but don't find the posting right now.

Go Microsoft! Steal more struff!!

Roman

[HTH NE1]

So languages C, D, and M now exist. Are there also L, X, V, and I ?